


Perfectly Imperfect

by NoapologiesNoexcusesNoregrets



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV), The Vampire Diaries - L. J. Smith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Crack and Angst, Dark Crack, Drama & Romance, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Funny, Hilarious, M/M, Multi, Romance, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:31:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 52,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoapologiesNoexcusesNoregrets/pseuds/NoapologiesNoexcusesNoregrets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damon and Bonnie both escape from the prison world, but what they come home to isn't what they expected.</p><p>It hasn't just been four months for their friends, instead it's been seventeen years. </p><p>It appears that most of the Mystic falls group have found peace and happiness in some way.</p><p>Damon and Bonnie find that they no longer fit into their old lives. </p><p>They will need each other to pave a new way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Helllllooo humans! Welcome to my story! First of all let me just state that I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.
> 
> This will primarily be a BAMON centric fic, mainly because I've been waiting for BAMON to happen since season 2 and the TVD show seems intent of destroying all of my BAMON dreams. So sod them, I'm doing it myself. I'm rewriting season 6. And possibly 7...we shall see. If you want something done right...well, you know how it goes.
> 
> Other couples will include-Barbie and Broody a.k.a the dream team Stefan and Caroline. Professor Fang and Dr. Gemini a.k.a Alaric and Jo. Wolf attack and Curly emo a.k.a Tyler and Liv. Boy next door and Male Sabrina a.k.a Matt and Luke (please no hate. Matt needs love too, and despite everything I liked Luke.)
> 
> This story is basically what it would be like if pretty much none of the crap from season 6 or 7 happened and instead both Bonnie and Damon went back to the 'real world' together only to discover that seventeen years have passed for their friends. The only things I'm definitely keeping as cannon is Elena asking Ric to fwoosh away her love for Damon, Ric becoming human, and Mystic falls being unmagic proofed.
> 
> Anyways, some warnings for you all:
> 
> Humour. (Loads of it. I am a fan of the funny.)
> 
> Romance. (The haters to lovers version. Or maybe friends to lovers...meh.)
> 
> Sexual situations. (I will make you aware of those scenes as we go.)
> 
> Bad language. (I swear inside my head all the time, therefore most of my characters tend to that as well. Not like an insane amount though, so don't worry.)
> 
> Violence. (Epic battles need violence warnings otherwise they just aren't epic enough. Truth.)
> 
> Probably...other things too. I'll let you know. Promise.
> 
> So, right then, on with the story my unicorn brethren!

**Prologue**

_Damon-Do you know the feeling when you've killed so many people in your life that you no longer remember the actual number? I reached that point...eh, about sixty years ago. To be honest it was actually a relief, because now I don't have to even pretend to keep track. Although, then again, marking down names of the dead was always more my little brother's thing._

_Bonnie-Do you know the feeling when you realise you've given up everything, and it still wasn't enough to save everyone you love? Granted, Damon isn't exactly my favourite person, and I definitely don't love him. But Elena does, and that's enough for me to care that he's dead right alongside me._

**Bonnie's P.O.V**

_Prison world_

"If you could imagine your perfect life, what would it be like?"

I have no idea why I'm asking him that. In most likelihood he'll just say something asshole-ish in response and I'll regret agreeing to share a bottle of bourbon with him in the first place.

Damon looks over at me, a half smirk curling his lips. He drawls mockingly,

"I think you've watched too many romcoms, Bon Bon."

Ha, called it!

"Just answer the question Danger mouse."

Damon's expression forms into something caught between irritation and amusement at his own expense.

"Well that was just uncalled for."

I snort in response and say,

"You'll deal with it."

In all my life I've never met anyone quite like the man sitting beside me. I'm glad of that too, because I'm sure the universe would implode if there was ever any more than one Damon Salvatore in existence.

Damon pretends to pout for a good few seconds, but then he just takes another mouthful of bourbon and says,

"Right, anyway, my perfect life...well, I'd be _not dead_ for a start."

I arch an eyebrow at him. If there's one thing I can definitely say about Damon, it's that he loves being a vampire. He relishes in it like no other vampire I know; and I know a pretty large number of vampires by this point. In fact since my junior year in High School my life has been chock full of vampires, witches, werewolves, magic and death.

All of those things seem to go together in one way or another.

I let my gaze linger over Damon's face for a little while before asking,

"Like...the _human_ version of not dead?"

For some reason I'm genuinely curious about his answer. But I suppose that's what you get when you've been stuck in an alternate dimension with literally only one other person in existence for four months.

I look around the boarding house living room and think about all the times I've been here. But actually ** _here_**. Back in our real world, where all the people we love are left behind. Alive. Or at least semi-sort-of alive in some cases. I'm still not sure about the vampire-death semantics even after all this time.

Damon shrugs one shoulder, smirks, and says,

"Alright, maybe a little bit dead then."

"You're ridiculous." I tell him honestly.

Damon gets that teasing look on his face that he knows full well drives me up the freakin' wall. I'm almost positive that he does it on purpose just to rile me. I hate it. I hate even more that it works. Every. Single. Time.

"Thank you Sabrina. God, you get mean when you've had a few drinks."

I give him my best ironic stare and say,

"Boo hoo for you. Go on, so you'd be alive and..."

Damon pulls a face, but actually replies after a few beats of contemplative silence,

"...I'd be with Elena."

I see the pain in his eyes just by mentioning her name. Elena. One of my best friends. The girl Damon is desperately in love with. It's likely that neither of us will ever see her again. I take another drink of bourbon and don't even wince when it burns down my throat.

"Would you marry her?" I ask Damon.

He looks really thoughtful for about thirty seconds, and then answers,

"I never really thought about it...but...yeah. In an ideal world. One day."

I'm not really sure what to say to that. Or how to deal with the very real melocholy in his voice.

"Sounds...nice." I manage to get out. I'm not even sure what I mean by it.

All traces of hurt are gone from Damon's impossibly pale blue eyes and he looks at me,

"Liar."

I can't help but roll my eyes. We sit together in a surprisingly comfortable silence. Actually, it's not all that surprising. Damon and I have found some kind of middle ground lately. We still bicker and fight almost constantly, but there's no longer the malicious edge to our arguments. We aren't enemies anymore, maybe we haven't been for a long time. But also, it's pretty hard to hate each other when there's no one else to talk to about...anything.

Trust me, your standards on friends are the first thing to go when you get sentenced to a empty otherworld devoid of any other contact.

"Apart from being alive and married to Elena...what else?" I ask after a certain amount of time has passed.

Damon stares into the fireplace and tilts his head to the side slightly,

"What else is there?

I'm almost not sure how to respond to that. At first I think he's joking, but after taking a look at his face I realise he's being completely serious. I try to think of a time when Damon referred to having any other dreams or aspirations beyond wanting to be alive and with Elena. When I realise I can't think of anything, I say,

"Wow, you just revealed so much about yourself with that question."

Damon rolls his eyes and throws a marshmallow at me. Apparently we've become the kind of people who share a bottle of bourbon and eat marshmallows next to a roaring fire. I wonder once again what I ever did to deserve this fate.

I pick up the marshmallow and eat it, giving Damon a smug look, which earns me another eye roll.

"Fine," Damon says, "I'd...have my own bar. There, happy?"

I scoff at him and say,

"What? Not a pancake shop?"

Damon's brow furrows and he starts picking at the fabric on one of the fancy pillows.

"There are no pancake shops." He says firmly.

I can't help myself.

"Exactly. You could be the first. Start a new trend." I say, sounding a mix between genuine (because I'm a bit drunk) and sarcastic (because...well because I'm talking to _Damon_ ).

Both of Damon's eyebrows go up as he looks at me. He reaches over and takes the bottle of bourbon away from me, then he puts it out my reach on the table.

"Yeah, ok, you're officially cut off Bon bon."

I pull my legs up and cross them, leaning back more comfortably on the sofa. I give Damon a speculative glance and ask,

"Do you think we can die here?"

Damon's body immediately becomes tense and brief flicker of something angry sparks in his eyes. But a moment later the anger is gone and he seems to force himself to relax.

"Probably." Damon throws out, apparently trying to sound casual. He looks at me, his eyes narrowing slightly, "What about you my number one witchy woo, what would your perfect life be like?"

Damn. I didn't think he would actually bother to ask me that. How to answer a question that has been plaguing me for longer than I'd like to admit? Back in the real world, I never had much time to really think about what I wanted. Not in any aspect. Of course Jeremy loved me. Of course I was in college. Of course I missed my father and Grams. Of course my best friends needed me.

But what do I _want_?

I push those thoughts away and turn a fake smile on Damon,

"Well, there's a good chance you wouldn't be there."

Damon mockingly clutches at his chest,

"Ouch. My emotions. Please stop."

I fall back into our snarky pattern easily and make a sound of mock surprise,

"You have _emotions_? Since when?"

Damon smiles at me wickedly,

"They're new."

"New?"

"I borrowed them from a friend."

"You have **_friends_**?" I counter, leaning back and away from him.

Damon sighs dramatically and hangs his head,

"Nope, I lied. I stole them from a stranger."

I snort and shake my head.

"Now _that_ I could believe."

"Well look who grew some fangs of her own tonight." Damon says, pretending to sound scandalised. "I am shocked and appalled Miss Bennett."

I ignore his theatrics and actually answer his question. Sort of.

"I'd live in Mystic Falls I think. That stupid town is kind of part of me now. Even with all the memories."

Damon makes a face, and shuffles closer to me on the sofa. He asks teasingly,

"Would you be with baby Gilbert? You two still have a thing going on right? I find it hard to keep track since I...you know...don't...care."

I hit him with a pillow and say,

"I'd honestly be disturbed if you did care."

Damon laughs and hits me back with the same pillow.

Not long after that we both call it a night and go to bed. My mind is still whirring with thoughts I don't want to be having about things that don't really matter anymore.

But then, maybe they do.

Tonight we realised someone else is here. Someone else is in this hell of a place, and they finished my God-damn crossword puzzle. Even if Damon thinks it's all in my head, I don't care. Grams wouldn't have sent me to this place if there weren't a way to get out, and I'm going to find it no matter what. There is no way I'm accepting that this is my life.

If there was ever a time for me to be selfish and put all my effort into saving myself, then this is it.

...

I drag myself across the stone floor and grab onto the ascendant with a bloody hand. My body screams out in mind numbing pain, but I force myself to move again so that I can look over at Damon.

Kai, that fucking lunatic, is still trying to kill Damon with an arrow. He should be dead. Kai should be dead. But oh no, the prison world just had to throw another curve ball into the mix. Apparently Kai can't die here. Part of me even hopes he'll get back to our world just so I can kill him for real.

I use my disgust and loathing for Kai to keep myself from curling into a ball and dying. Like hell am I giving up after all this. And like hell am I letting Damon die either. We're both gonna get out of here even if it kills me in the end.

Damon groans as he tries to fight Kai off, but Kai has the upper hand.

"Bonnie...get...out of here!" Damon manages to shout painfully at me.

Working on it!

But I'm not leaving that asshole behind.

Not Kai, I mean the other asshole. The one I apparently like despite having every reason not to. The one with that stupid pouty mouth and ridiculously blue eyes. That asshole.

"No!" I shout back at him. My shout definitely sounded more painful.

"This is no time to disagree with me just because you can!" Damon grinds out angrily.

Oh yeah, because I'm just rolling around on the ground in agony for my own amusement.

Message to brain, this probably isn't the best time to get all internal snarkmaster, kay.

Clearly I have reached the delirium stage of this situation. Brilliant. It happens faster each and every time I'm dying.

"Bonnie!" Damon shouts again in warning but I ignore him.

I dig down deep inside myself and tap into the seemingly bottomless well of my magical reserves. I need this to work. I need to _make_ this work.

" _Mantis_!" I splay my hand out towards Kai, and my magic sends him flying off Damon. Kai's head hits a rock and his body goes limp on the ground. Relief flood through me like a river.

Damon, thank God for vampire reflexes, wastes no time in vamp speeding over to me. I grip onto his arm. Damon bites his wrist and presses it to my mouth. I drink his blood, which even in this sitation and after all this time, still feels weird. I guess blood drinking just ain't my thing, at least I can cross that off the fetish list.

Not that I have one. But if I **_did_**...drinking blood would so not be on it.

Focus brain! Focus!

I can already feel myself healing, but I'm all too aware that the eclipse is moving on fast. We need to get out here now. There's no telling if we'll get this chance again whilst Kai is out of the picture.

"Come on, Damon, we have to go. Now."

Damon frowns, concern in his eyes, but there's desperation too. He wants to go home. Well good, because I want to go home too. We all want to go home, so lets go already.

I get unsteadily to my feet, Damon's arm around me to make sure I don't just flop back over again.

"Are you sure, Bonnie?" Damon asks, and despite his obvious desire to leave this place, the question is genuine.

I give him a firm nod, even though inside I'm not all that sure.

"Yeah, lets blow this prison world." I joke.

Damon actually cracks a smile, but it's a wary one. He helps me get over to the right place beneath the eclipse, his arm his holding onto me almost protectively. I barely resist the urge to tease him about it, but I'm so excited to finally be going home that I really don't care.

I hold out the ascendant, letting it balance on my palm. We don't even have to wait a few seconds before it unravels itself and there's a flash of light that-...

.

.

.

.

.

.

.


	2. Holy shiz!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Damon's P.O.V**

Sometimes, I really hate magic. Or dimension travel. Or whatever the hell that just was.

Once the white light fades away I'm able to see that we've officially made it back from hell. We've somehow landed in the same place we were standing in when we first poofed off to that prison world.

I'm not even sure if that last sentence made sense at all. I think my brain is a bit scrambled from all that dimension travel bullshit. Remind me never to die again. The first time I came back a vampire and the second time I ended up being sentenced to a prison world alongside Mystic falls' very own Sabrina. Clearly, I do not have a good track record with what happens after I die.

"Do you think it worked? Are we really back?" Bonnie looks at me, apparently unaware that she's still grasping onto my arm. Or maybe she is aware and she just doesn't care. It can be hard to tell with Bonnie sometimes.

I arch an eyebrow at Bonnie and say,

"Well, it's either that or we've actually died for real this time and the universe is playing a cruel joke on us." Or me. More likely me.

"By this point I'd believe just about anything." Bonnie mutters, and she pulls away from me to take a few steps to her left.

"Is your side ok?" I ask her, remembering the absolute fury I felt towards Kai when he shot Bonnie with that arrow. Bonnie and I might argue almost constantly, but no one else gets to hurt her in any way but me.

I'm not saying its perfect logic, but after four months in hell, I can safely say that Bonnie is my new favourite person. To be honest there really aren't many people who I care about in general, so I tend to be pretty protective of the ones I do actually care about.

I like to think it's one of my very few virtues.

Bonnie gives me that narrow eyed look that she always gets on her face when she's trying to find insincerity in my words. I used to think it was as annoying as hell, but now I just think its Bonnie's way of maintaining distance between us so she can feel ok about not hating me anymore.

"I'm fine." Bonnie says unconvincingly, but when she pulls up her shirt to take a look, all I see is smooth dark skin. I did worry that my blood wouldn't heal her in time, or that the dimension jump would somehow fuck it up.

I'm still not completely sure that it didn't fuck up something. I feel weird. Everything around me is…dimmer. Nothing is as bright and loud as it usually is. I can't remember the last time I felt like this, in fact I don't think I have since….

Holy shit no!

I lift my hand to my mouth and try, in vain, to feel my fangs. No. They're gone. In desperation I spy a sharp rock and pick it up. I use the edge to cut open my arm, and blood immediately begins to seep out of the wound.

I wait. And I wait. But nothing. The wound doesn't heal. It stings like a bitch though.

Bonnie is staring at me now like I've lost my mind.

"What the hell are you doing you lunatic?" Bonnie's eyes are wide, and her gaze is darting between the rock and the cut on my arm.

I can't help myself from snapping at her,

"Obviously I've decided to take up self-harming, Bon Bon."

Bonnie throws me a scornful frown,

"That's not funny, Damon."

I turn a glare on her and brandish my still cut arm out towards her,

"Neither is _this_!"

Bonnie seems confused for a second, clearly unsure what I'm getting all worked up about. Then I see something click behind her eyes and they widen almost comically. Sometimes when Bonnie is really surprised or shocked she genuinely reminds me of one of those bush baby things. Her eyes just get so big.

It makes me want to laugh. But more with hysterical laughter at the moment than anything even resembling actual humour.

"You aren't healing!" Bonnie breathes in disbelief.

"Thank you for finally noticing." I say distractedly as I poke and prod at my cut. It really stings, damn it, I think I might even need stitches.

Bonnie's eyes flash with anger and indignation,

"Well excuse me for being distracted by the maniac who randomly cut open his own arm for no reason."

"Can you really do something randomly _for_ a reason?" I ask, more out of the instinctive need to be dick than anything else.

"How is it possible that you're somehow more irritating now that we're back home?" Bonnie says, but since her face is tipped upwards, I'm guessing she's not actually asking me that question.

I'm human. That's the only explanation. Somehow….I'm human.

"Can you do magic?" I ask Bonnie suddenly, a theory coming to life inside my mind.

Bonnie frowns at me, but she holds out a hand and says,

"Incindia!"

There's a silent pause. Yep, nothing.

"What is…." Bonnie shakes her head, and scowls down at her hand, "There's….no magic."

"Is something blocking it again?" I ask her, taking step towards her curiously.

Bonnie looks up at me and says,

"No." Her expression morphs into something determined, "No, it isn't that. There's no block…there's…it's like there is literally no magic inside me anymore. I can't grab onto it, or feel it."

This just keeps getting weirder. Where the hell are we? Maybe we've accidentally been sent to another dimension where there's no magic. Disappointment crashes around inside me like a wave, and anger starts to simmer.

But it's not the same. I feel…different. Calmer. I know why I'm upset and angry, but I don't know what to do with those feelings. Without my vampire instincts to fall back on, I'm forced to really analyse my thoughts. It's fucking disturbing.

I remember, vaguely, what it was like to be human. To feel my impulses, but to also understand when I'd reached the point of no return. When I became a vampire that sense of awareness all but disappeared completely. A level of choice was taken away. I always thought I felt freer because of it.

But now I'm forced to acknowledge that being trapped by my predator vampire urges may have been more confining than I allowed myself to think about.

This is all far too confusing to take in at once. But, of course as a human there is no escape from your own mind. There's just you and all the complications that come along with that state of being.

"I'm not a vampire right now." I say, both to myself and to Bonnie.

Bonnie's brows furrow and she heaves an almighty sigh. The sound seems to come from somewhere deep down inside of her, and I almost wish I could echo the sentiment behind it.

"It couldn't just be simple, could it?" Bonnie mutters, and she stalks off through the woods.

I drop the bloodied rock and walk fast to catch up with her.

"We need to get into town and figure this out before my mind explodes." I say.

It seems like Mystic Falls is no longer anti-magic like it was before. But it's definitely still something.

"Where do you think I'm going?" Bonnie says huffily.

"I can't decide which is the more bitchy version of you. Bon Bon with magic, or Bon Bon without magic." I muse.

"Apparently human Damon is still a dick." Bonnie says, "Good to know some things never change I suppose."

"Well… at least we still have each other." I say sarcastically. It horrifies me that even after all that Kai bullshit, I might still only be able to count on Bonnie Bennett.

"Don't say things like that, I'll get nightmares." Bonnie flashes me a mocking grimace.

I'm thinking maybe I should invest in getting Bonnie some kind of friendship bracelet. Hell, maybe if I'd gotten one for Enzo then things might have turned out better.

**Stefan's P.O.V**

"Dad, can I have some cookies when we get home?" Gabriel's grip on my hand tightens in anticipation of my answer.

I open my mouth to say yes, but then I remember what happened last time Gabriel had cookies before dinner. He refused to eat anything, especially anything green, and he cried when Elizabeth flaunted her after dinner ice cream at him. From then on Caroline banned any sweets before dinner on pain of death.

Plus I can't really give Gabriel cookies unless I'm willing to give the other kids cookies as well. I don't even think we have enough at home to feed them all. I almost cringe at the thought of the tantrums that would erupt from such a thing.

I squeeze my eight year old son's hand and say gently,

"Mummy said no sweets before dinner, you know that Gabe."

Gabriel gets that pouty look on his face, like when he's not sure whether to cry outright, or if trying to needle me a little bit more will work instead. He can be a sneaky little thing. Always was. But he's not quite as persistent as his twelve year old sister. Elizabeth never gives up on anything if she thinks she's in the right.

Elizabeth always thinks she's in the right. She reminds me of her mother that way. Not that I can ever say that to Caroline, or she'll go out of her way to prove that she isn't stubborn. By being stubborn about not being stubborn.

After almost fourteen years of marriage, I've finally learnt how to win an argument with Caroline. And that is by never giving her a reason to argue with me in the first place. There really is no other way.

Elizabeth and Caroline are so much alike and they argue constantly. Sometimes they even remind me of Caroline and her own mother. They love each other fiercely, but they also clash on just about everything, which shouldn't make any sense considering how similar they are. But still, there are worst things.

If my lifetime as a vampire taught me anything, it's that things could _always_ be worse.

Liz died of cancer over fifteen years ago and it felt right to name our first daughter after Caroline's mother. After Liz died it was terrible time for Caroline. But she'd been there for me after Damon's death, and I refused to leave Caroline's side, even when she pretended she didn't want me there.

My children are both blond, but where Elizabeth has fair hair like her mother, Gabriel has darker blonde like mine. Elizabeth has my green eyes though, and Gabriel has Caroline's cornflower blue eyes. They're both so beautiful, and sometimes it chokes me up just to look at them. Even when they're yelling at me and storming off because I won't buy them the latest expensive make up or give them a cookie.

"Alright. One cookie." I say to Gabriel, and his face lights up like a Christmas tree. I'm such a pushover when it comes to the kids, Caroline can attest to that.

It's my day off from the hospital today, so I said I'd pick up the children from school. I didn't quite realise what I'd been letting myself in for when I agreed to that. I thought I'd just be picking up my own two children, but instead I've ended up taking home half the town.

I have ten children to herd through Mystic Falls, and I swear it's just like trying to keep control of ten baby elephants instead.

Elizabeth, Vicki and Zoe are rushing off ahead laughing and flashing their phones at each other, as the oldest three of the group. Benji and Daniel, both aged ten, are chasing each other, zig zagging all over the pavement like crazy. Daniel's twin sister Erin is trying to keep up with them, desperately wanting to be part of a game that has no rules except apparently 'give uncle Stefan a heart attack'.

Miranda is walking calmly beside me, her long dark hair covering her face. She's the same age as Gabriel, and appears almost painfully shy most of the time.

Cody is literally skipping along the pavement right in front of me. He's honestly the happiest six year old in the world. I don't think I've ever seen him cry or get upset about anything. Elena thinks maybe Cody is supressing his emotions, but I think he's just a happy-go-lucky kind of kid.

Isobel is the youngest of the group at age five, and I have her balanced on my right hip. Her small hands are clutching at my t-shirt, and her big brown eyes are darting all over the place with interest as usual.

I almost wish I'd asked Elena if I could borrow her SUV. Although even then it would have been a struggle to get them all in there. But, no, stupid me, I thought it was too nice a day to drive anywhere in such a small town. So I walked.

I am regretting that decision with each passing second.

All their parents are still at work, and will be until at least half five, so I might have to quickly build myself a zoo when we get home just so I can keep tabs on all of them.

It's likely that Vicki and Zoe will go upstairs with Elizabeth to her room, and I won't hear anything from them until dinner. The others will probably demand snacks, or the TV on, or a football for the garden, or some pencils and paper for drawing. They mostly entertain themselves.

Until there's a fight. And there's always a fight.

Someone will break something, or take something away from someone else, and then I'll have to referee a child war as they all pick sides.

I wish I was being overly dramatic. I'm not.

All I have to do is think about our last family barbecue and I begin to feel the need to hide away inside the attic. SO many different types of children in once place will always end in some kind of disaster. And yet we all still meet up for lunches and barbecues and birthday parties. It's a never ending cycle of madness, and I honestly wouldn't change any of it for the world.

…

Around six Elena and her husband Evan come to pick up their daughters, Miranda and Isobel. Evan is a werewolf, and Elena met him through Tyler. I realised it right away when I saw them together that Evan was going to be special. He and Elena just clicked right off the bat, and I'd never seen her so relaxed and happy than when she was with him.

I'd been very sceptical when Elena asked Alaric to compel away her feelings for Damon, in fact it felt almost like a betrayal at the time. But then, if she hadn't of done that then she might have never given Evan a chance.

Elena had been dating Evan for a year when we finally found a way to fix Mystic Falls. Or, at least we thought we did. It's sort of a long story. We meant to make Mystic Falls magic friendly again and get rid of the Traveller's spell, but what we actually did was accidentally tweak the spell just a little bit.

So instead of magic not being allowed in Mystic Falls, now there's just no magic at all. None of us are sure how it works even after all this time, but the end result is that everything supernatural becomes human. Even vampires. It's almost like the universe restores our factory settings or something.

But as soon as we leave Mystic Falls, the supernatural is returned to us. It was really confusing, and kind of terrifying, at first.

Elena especially struggled with regaining her memories of Damon and their entire relationship. I thought for a while that Elena would break everything off with Evan and allow grief to swallow her again.

None of us wanted that.

I knew I was the only one who could understand how Elena felt. I was the only person who could really understand what it meant to love Damon. After a lot of heart to hearts and fights between me and Elena, I eventually managed to convince her not to throw everything she'd worked for away. Even more my brother.

It almost felt like betrayal to Damon, especially when Elena married Evan, but at the same time I knew Damon would have wanted Elena to be happy. She was always the one person he tried not to be selfish with. I have to believe that he would understand. Elena needed to move on. And so did I.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't handle Damon's death very well. In fact I ran. I ran and I tried to built a new life for myself. But even then I knew it was a lie. How could I ever have a real life without Caroline? She'd become so much a part of me, that I couldn't imagine ever being truly happy not having her in my life.

Strangely enough it was actually Enzo who managed to get that message through my thick head in the end. Enzo was the one who pulled (yanked viciously) me out of the darkness I'd allowed myself to spiral into

At first he was just doing it for Caroline, because he actually didn't like me at all. I know that for a fact because he told me. On numerous occasions.

But over the years we formed a bond. Eventually a friendship grew from that. It's somewhat similar to what my relationship was like with Lexi. But at the same time Enzo reminded me of Damon in a lot of ways. So I suppose in the beginning it was a mixture of both of them looking out at me from inside Enzo.

Now, of course, I like Enzo just because he's Enzo. But I'll never forget how it all started. I owe him, I really do.

Enzo met a young vampire named Lyna thirteen years ago. They got married only six months later and moved to Mystic Falls so they could start over together. They have one eleven year old daughter, who is one of Elizabeth's best friends, Zoe.

Elena and Evan also have to pick up Cody, Elena's nephew and Jeremy's only son. Jeremy and his partner Alicia are out on a hunt together so Elena is taking care of Cody whilst they're gone. Elena still doesn't approve of Jeremy's hunting, but there's not much she can do about it, which also annoys her to no end.

Enzo and Lyna come to pick up Zoe not long after Elena and Evan arrive.

Matt arrives only ten minutes later to get his two children, Benji and Vicki. His husband Luke is with him. That's another long story all by itself.

Last to come by are Liv and Tyler to pick up their twins Daniel and Erin. Tyler looks overworked as usual, apparently life as a lawyer really leaves no time for much else. According to Caroline that's a serious problem for Liv at the moment.

Somehow, against all odds, Caroline and Liv have become good friends, along with Lyna and Elena as well. The four of them have become very close over the years, and both Enzo and I know when to get out the way if the four of them are together. We usually drag Evan and Tyler along with us too.

Caroline came with Enzo as they both work together at the News station. I was so relieved to see her that I almost collapsed right there on the spot. Caroline can read me so well now that she told me to go take a break upstairs.

I refuse anyway and help her make the dinner. Everyone ends up staying for dinner, which isn't an uncommon occurrence, so we have to make a few batches of spaghetti. By the end of the night the kids will probably have painted the living room with pasta. But at least the boarding house is big enough to hold us all.

When we moved in after we got married, Caroline insisted on completely redecorating the place. I was too happy back then to even think about arguing with her, so the boarding house got a complete make over. It barely looks like the same place anymore.

It feels…warmer. More like a home instead of a creepy mansion. All the ghosts of bad memories are gone.

We're all just finishing off dinner when the doorbell rings. It's late enough that I can't imagine who would be coming around now. Plus everyone we really know is already here. The only people are missing are Alaric, Jo, and their fifteen year old twins Sara and Carlie.

I suppose it could be them. They're usually invited to these random family dinners.

Caroline gives me the same look of 'do you know who that is?'. I just shrug my shoulders in response. Even after all these years of being human, I still strain my ears to see if I can hear whoever it is on the other side of the door.

I get up off the sofa to go answer the door. Everyone else is busy chattering away, or trying to control the horde of children we've surrounded ourselves with.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for what I was about to see behind that door. I open the door, a smile still on my face from being with my family. My heart threatens to turn to ice when I see him. Them.

Damon has that smirk I know so well on his face. All I can do is stare at him. After a few moments Damon takes another step forward and says,

"Hello brother, you miss me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N-I know I shoved a lot of information into one chapter, but I only really skimmed the surface of the characters. I'll try my best the capture the character's voices, but please also remember that these characters have had seventeen years of being human. They've all changed in some way or another. I really hope to delve into the relationships, not just how they relate to BAMON, but to everyone else as well. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading and please review and let me know what you think! xxx


	3. Humunafied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please read A/N! DO IT! Pweese. Meh, I almost want to flick myself in the eye for that one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Bonnie's P.O.V**

They look at each other. And it's like everything. And nothing.

" _Damon_ ," Stefan breathes the word. He's staring at Damon….and it's not a good stare.

Damon must notice something off in Stefan's expression because he tilts his head to the side and makes that face. _The_ face. The Damon face that always means ' _I'm feeling something I'm not sure I want to feel'_.

It's weird knowing Damon like that. I don't think I know very many people the way I know Damon. Or anyone. But I don't want to think about that right now. This moment going on right here is not the time for me to start brooding.

I'm not ultimately sure what kind of moment it is actually is, but that's hardly the point either.

Stefan steps forward then and he envelopes Damon in a tight embrace. Damon doesn't hesitate to wrap his own arms around Stefan. They hold onto each other, and to me it looks painfully intense. The Salvatore brothers are complex, and their relationship is even more so.

I can see Stefan's face over Damon's shoulder. He looks pale. Haunted. Maybe relieved. Stefan's face….looks….different. Still unfairly handsome, but also…older. There are lines creasing around his eyes and….is that a little dash of grey in his stubble? What the actual fuck is going on here?

Somehow the aging on Stefan is bothering me more than the no magic thing. I'm used to having someone or something fuck with my magic. I definitely am not used to vampires suddenly having laugh lines after only four months. Is he aging rapidly for whatever reason, like what happened with Katherine?

Part of me doesn't even want to know.

Stefan catches my eye over Damon shoulder. They've been hugging for a while now. Like long enough that I feel a bit like I'm intruding on a proper moment between the two of them. I am officially the third wheel in this reunion.

I can't really read the look in Stefan's eyes as he takes me in. Shock. Awe. Sadness. More so than there was with Damon. Why is that?

"Stefan!" I hear a familiar voice call out. "Who's at the door?"

My heart stutters in my chest when Caroline appears in the door way. Her sky eyes widen when she sees me and Damon. Stefan has finally pulled away from his brother, and he looking back at Caroline almost apologetically. I wonder about that too. Why would he look at her like something incredibly sad has just happened?

I expect Caroline to shriek my name and then throw herself at me for an embarrassingly long and hard hug. I expect to get a face full of blond hair and beaming smiles. I expect to get swept up in the whirlwind that is Caroline Forbes.

But Caroline does not screech. Or laugh. Or cry. She does not move to touch me.

One of my oldest friends just stands there. Staring.

It's even more obvious that Caroline has aged. Not in a bad way. She's still devastating. But now it's a more tamed beauty. Like a butterfly seen through glass.

For some reason what gets to me most is Caroline's hair. It's been cut short. Short enough that it barely grazes her shoulders. She has laugh lines, but somehow they just suit her in a way I could never have expected.

Caroline looks a lot more like her mother than she ever did before. It's something in the eyes.

They're not just the eyes of a woman who knows what she wants, because Caroline was always that way. They're the eyes of a woman who _has_ what she wants.

The difference is subtle, but I know Caroline.

Damon notices the weird tension going on between all of us. I shift my attention away from Caroline because it just feels too odd to watch her stare at me. She appears almost horrified by my presence and really don't understand it at all.

I'm even more convinced now that something big has happened whilst Damon and I were…away.

Damon, predictably, cuts through the silence that has descended by saying,

"Well, go on then, what the hell have you done to my town this time?" Damon shakes his head and looks back at me. I see concern in his eyes, but he continues anyway. "Honestly, we leave them alone for a few months and they somehow find a way to make everything all humanafied. It's disturbing."

Damn Damon for trying to make me laugh right now. This is so not funny. Like at all.

"It's hardly the worst thing to ever happen to this town." I say to Damon, trying valiantly not to smile because smiling would only encourage his ridiculousness.

"I disagree wholeheartedly." Damon shakes head, his lips quirking into an unpleasant frown. "I would take a crazy hybrid doppleganger traveller immortal vampire witch with daddy issues or mommy issues or whatever other issues the forces of not-quite-evil might have, over being human any day."

I snort and poke his shoulder,

"Still not the worst thing to happen to this town."

Damon pokes me back,

"What's the worst thing that ever happened to this town then?"

I raise an eyebrow and say simply,

"You."

"It's like we've travelled back in time," Caroline says suddenly, and I blink rapidly in surprise. Her voice sounds deeper, and decidedly less peppy. Caroline's eyes dart between me and Damon, "They haven't changed at all."

Wish I could say the same to you.

Instead I say,

"Ok, can we back up a second….why is Damon human, and why is my magic gone and why are you two…?" I gesture at them, not quite sure how explain using words.

"What Sabrina said," Damon jerks his head at me, "Explanations would be good any time brother." Damon is giving Stefan a strange look now. It's bordering on mistrustful.

Caroline and Stefan exchange a meaningful glance and then they turn back to us, both of them looking determined. I'm not sure what they're determined about, but whatever, it's not like any of this is making much sense to begin with.

"There's….a lot we have to tell you." Stefan says, and his tone is heavy with deeper implications.

"Are you planning on telling us right here, or do we get to come in?" Damon drawls, appearing to draw back into himself a bit.

Damon always gets like that when he feels threatened. I don't know what he has to feel threatened about. Stefan is his brother, and Caroline is our friend. It's not like they'd attack us.

Hopefully.

Caroline and Stefan look at each other again, and this time there's panic in both of their eyes. I'm getting more and more confused by the second.

"When Stefan says there's a lot we need to tell you," Caroline starts cautiously, "He really means there are some things that….you won't like. It's very complicated and we-"

"What could possibly be so complicated?" I find myself interrupting. I'm getting angry, and I can't stop the emotion from taking over just a little bit.

I mean, Damon and I are finally home, and all Caroline can talk about is bullshit. I just thought they would be excited to see us. Happy. But apparently I was wrong.

Caroline pulls a distressed face, and Stefan places a hand on her back. He pulls her closer to him, either protectively or comfortingly. Either way Caroline seems to draw some strength from it and her expression hardens into something I don't recognise.

"You need to know that a lot has changed in the last seventeen years and we-"

"Wait, seventeen _what_ now?" I shout, shock and disbelief rushing through me. I must have misheard Caroline. She can't have said…. _seventeen years. **What**?_

Damon seems just as shocked as I am, although he's hiding it a lot better. I can tell by the way he's standing so still though that he's been knocked back.

"Last time I checked four months was not seventeen years. Seventeen _weeks_ , maybe, yeah, but…." Damon trails off, clearly not sure what to say for once.

It makes me feel uneasy when Damon doesn't have a snappy response to something. Means it's too serious to find a joke about.

"Wait hold," Stefan says, sounding almost as confused as I feel, "you think it's only been _four months_ since you left?"

"It _has_ only been four months," I say in frustration. At least it has been for us.

Stefan is starting to look as horrified as Caroline.

"Here it's been seventeen years since you both….died." Caroline says, obviously trying to sound calm but not quite pulling it off.

"That's….impossible!" I say, taking a step away from them all.

Damon reaches out a hand to wrap around my wrist. He squeezes it in what I think he means to be a reassuring way. I shift a bit closer to him. Who knew Damon would ever be my source of sanity in a crazy situation?

"Are seriously saying that we've missed _seventeen years_?" Damon asks, his voice is surprisingly grim and steady.

There's a pause. It's not a pleasant pause at all. In fact it's so awful that for a second I wish I was back in that damn prison world. Even with Kai the psychopathic douchecanoe.

Finally Stefan answer gravely,

"Yes."

Caroline seems to have death grip on Stefan's arm now and she's looking at me with so much sorrow in her eyes. I hate it. I wish I could take that sorrow away and burn it to ash beneath my feet.

The worst part of this is that some part of me isn't even surprised. Because of course it's been seventeen years. Of course I've missed out on seventeen years of my friend's lives. Of course nothing will ever be the same as it was before I died (again). How could I have expected anything else?

Nothing is ever simple for me. Nothing ever turns out the way I want it to.

I really should have predicted something like this. Just another chapter in the epic story of Bonnie Bennett, the witch who always gets fucked over by _something_.

And just when I think things couldn't get any weirder, life smacks me in the face with another dose of 'lets fuck with the witch'.

Stefan and Caroline are still standing there, looking at me and Damon like they've started grieving for us all over again.

"Daddy! Mommy! Danny and Benji stole my trains!" I'm startled by the child-like voice. Even Damon jumps a little at my side, his expression immediately morphing into a deep frown.

A moment later a little boy with blond hair and familiar blue eyes comes skidding around the corner. He practically bounces over to Stefan and Caroline.

The boy's eyes widen when he notices me and Damon. He looks particularly interested in Damon. The blond boy makes a pensive face and points at us, or more accurately at Damon. But he looks back at Caroline and Stefan before saying,

"Is dead Uncle Damon not living in the sky anymore?"

I'm gonna need to lie down now.

**Elena's P.O.V**

"Do you think they're alright?" I ask Lyna worriedly.

Lyna turns to me, her big pale doe eyes full of compassion and laughter. Her husband Enzo is busy helping my own husband attempt to play over sized Jenga with most of the children.

Elizabeth, Zoe and Vicki are sitting clumped together near the end of the room, sharing Elizabeth's laptop. Most likely watching another one of those insane Youtube videos they seem so fond of.

Daniel and Benji are running around like crazed animals as per usual. They get told off by Tyler when Daniel starts teasing his twin sister, Erin. Benji just stands back looking innocent and sweet. He looks so much like Matt sometimes that it causes a pang to ache through my chest.

My own eldest daughter Miranda is sitting quelty side by side with her cousin Cody whilst they both read books. I smile at them both fondly. Sometimes I worry that Cody has become somehow damaged by Jeremy's hunting lifestyle. Cody is only six and yet he's one of the most sombre people I know.

I've tried talking to Jeremy about it, but he bites my head off any time I try to suggest alternative ways to raise Cody. It's not that I don't trust my brother, of course I do, but he more than anyone knows how much the supernatural can screw with someone life. I just don't understand how he can risk Cody being exposed to it all.

My own life was completely changed when the supernatural invaded it. Almost all the bad things that ever happened to me back then were because of the supernatural. Vampires and magic. All either of them ever brought me was death and destruction.

Of course I know that I married a werewolf, and outside of this town I'm still technically a vampire. But within Mystic falls I have everything I ever could have wished for. I love my kind and generous husband. I love my beautiful and quirky children. I love my friends, who have become my family. I love my job at the hospital, working alongside Stefan and Jo.

The only thing I could possibly wish for is Bonnie. Even now, after all these years, it still hurts to think of my old friend. I miss her. I miss talking to her and sharing stories and pain and magic with her. Bonnie was the best friend a person could ever want, and I hate that I didn't appreciate her more when she was alive.

I have my youngest daughter, Isobel, on my lap. Her long dark hair is twisted into a plait, with bunny rabbit hair pins holding it together.

I decided to name my daughters after my two mothers. The one who raised me, and the one who gave me life. Both of them were important to me in some way, and I wanted to remember them in the best light possible.

Evan understood, without me even having to explain, he just understood. He always does. It's one of the reasons why I love him. His strength and patience are what drew me to him in the first place. Despite being a werewolf, Evan was even tempered and kind. He's a good man, right down to the very depths of his being.

But, as I found out later on in our relationship, Evan has a less than perfect past. He caused a lot of trouble by being impulsive and selfish, and he hurt even more people because of it. Evan told me stories of how little self-control he used have, and how that led to him activating the werewolf curse. He also told me that becoming a werewolf is probably the worst _and_ the best thing that ever happened to him.

I understood the feeling, as it's the same way I feel about when I became a vampire. It was traumatic and terrifying for the most part, but a lot of good things came out of it too. My relationship with Damon for one thing.

I could never regret falling in love with Damon Salvatore.

For as long as I live there will always be a special place in my heart for Damon. Losing him almost broke me. I even took my own memories of him away by asking Alaric to compel me into forgetting my love for Damon.

I can see now that it was a weak choice on my part. I should have been stronger. I should have wanted to keep those memories of Damon even if they tore me apart inside. I'm glad I have those memories back now.

I wouldn't be who I am today without having met Damon. He changed me more than anyone else ever has in my life. For the good, and for the bad sometimes too.

But now, after all these years, I can see how unhealthy our relationship was at times. We descended into a dark hole, both of us unable to break the cycle of pain we caused each other time and time again. I wish we'd had the chance to….I'm not sure. Move on together. Hopefully realise how much we destroyed each other.

I loved Damon with everything in me, heart, body, mind and soul. And I know he loved me too. Of course he did.

But when I met Evan, and then as I fell in love with him, I realised that 'epic movie love' isn't the only way to be in love with someone.

I know Stefan learnt that with Caroline. I learnt it with Evan.

I remember once, after Liz died and when Stefan was still trying to decide whether to persue a romantic relationship with Caroline, he and I sat in a bar together. I'd just gotten my memories back about Damon and I wasn't sure if I should stay with Evan or not.

We sat there in that bar and talked, for the first time, about our relationship. And about Damon. All the things we did right, and all the things the three of us did wrong. In the end we realised that it didn't matter anymore. I made my choice. Stefan made his. So did Damon.

I couldn't regret my love for Damon. But at the same time I wouldn't have stopped myself from falling in love with Stefan either.

Stefan agreed that even after everything he still wouldn't have given up the time we had together. No matter how it all turned out, some things are just too important to be wiped out of existence.

I think there's a chance we might have almost kissed that night. But at the last second we both realised how much of a mistake that would be. Our time had passed. Too much had happened.

Besides, Stefan was completely in love with Caroline, even if it took the idiot a while to fully realise and accept it.

And as for me….even though I still missed Damon like someone might miss a lost limb, I could feel myself already falling in love with Evan. It felt wrong to give in and lose myself to my grief like I had before.

So maybe losing my love for Damon helped. I suppose I'll never know how I would have handled it otherwise. But if there's one thing I've learnt, it's that looking back on things that could have been only wreck all the amazing things you definitely already have in your life.

"They have been out there for a while now," Lyna says, and my attention snaps back to her.

Stefan went to answer the door ages ago, and then Caroline went to check everything was ok. Even after all this time it still pays to be cautious.

"I just saw Gabe run off shouting about trains," Matt says from my other side on the sofa.

Luke and Liv were in the middle of a heated debate about their father, who had recently become quite ill. Liv wants him to come and live in Mystic Falls, but she doesn't want him to live with her. Luke argues that if she wants their father here so badly then she should be the one who take him in, especially since she's the one with the massive mansion.

Luke and Matt moved into a nice three bedroom house about two years ago. It's a lovely cottage style house, but it's nowhere near the size or grandeur of the Lockwood mansion.

Matt quickly disengaged himself from his husband and sister in law as they prepared to butt heads once again. Matt knows by now not to get involved with the twins when they start snapping at each other.

Matt is pretty laid back these days. He's recently been promoted to Sheriff, which means longer hours and more work. But he still manages to carve out time for his husband and children. I always thought Matt would make great husband and father, and I was right. He also happens to make an amazing Sheriff too. Although he says it's much easier to keep a town safe when it's officially free of magic. I can definitely see his point on that one.

I frown a little in the direction of the front door and then look back at Matt,

"Who do you think is at the door?"

Matt shrugs one shoulder,

"No idea. But whoever it is, they must be very chatty."

"Hmm, well, plenty of bad things have come through that door." I say with a sigh.

Matt nods in agreement, although there's a slight curl to his lips.

"Yeah, that chilli you brought over here last Saturday for dinner was pretty awful." He says.

I narrow my eyes at him,

"Lies! My chilli is amazing."

Lyna starts laughing behind me, although she tries to cover it up. Matt just shakes his head, giving me a placating look.

"Alright, Elena, whatever you say."

There's nothing wrong with my chilli. Why do people keep saying that? It's an old Gilbert recipe.

"What do you think of Mommy's chilli?" I kiss the side of Isobel's head.

Isobel pulls a face and then grins Matt, who winks at her.

"I don't like it." Isobel says, "It tastes _foon_ key."

Matt laughs long and loud at that, and he reaches out his hands to take my daughter. Isobel leaps into Matt's arms and crawls into his lap. She's snickering too. Lyna is definitely laughing now.

"I can't believe you've turned my own daughter against me, Donovan." I give Matt a mock accusing look.

"Well to be fair, it wasn't that hard." Matt says, and he starts tickling Isobel. My youngest daughter screams with laughter as she riggles around on Matt's lap.

Warmth spreads through my chest at the sight of Isobel's face lit up with joy. Isobel is definitely the most outgoing between her and Miranda. I love that my daughters have such strong personalities already. It reassures me in some way that no matter what happens, they'll be strong enough to keep moving forward. Although I hope they never have to go through what I did.

I catch Evan's eye from across the room. He smiles at me, and that one smile causes a flood of emotion to rush through me. He's so beautiful. Inside and out. And the rough edges surrounding him and his imperfect past just makes him even more desirable to me. Sometimes I wonder how I ever got so lucky.

"Elena." I whip around when I hear my name called in a tone that suggests the whole world is about to fall apart. I haven't heard that tone in a long time.

Caroline is standing there, looking at me with something dark in her eyes. Her face has drained of all colour, she looks pale and like she's dealing with some kind of deep inner pain. I immediately feel on edge.

I stand up, even after all this time I'm still ready for a fight. Maybe Klaus is back, even though we haven't heard from him in years. Or at least I haven't, I'm not so sure about Stefan and Caroline. Maybe something's gone wrong with the magic block on the town, but if that's true then it hasn't reached us yet because I'm definitely still human.

"Caroline, what is it? What's wrong?"

All the adults in the room have stopped talking, even Luke and Liv. Now we're all looking to Caroline. They must have heard it in her voice too; the fear.

I take a step towards Caroline, but she holds up a hand as if to ward me off. I frown at her in confusion.

"They're back." Caroline says. Something sharp spikes inside my chest.

"Who?" I ask, but it's a barely there sound.

Caroline's voice isn't much steadier when she says,

"Damon and Bonnie. They're back."

Denial. No.

I want to say that's crazy. I want to say that can't be possible, that Damon and Bonnie are dead and have been for over seventeen years. I almost do say those things...but then... _but then_...

My not-dead best friend and my not-dead boyfriend come walking into the room. And for a single moment, it's like the last seventeen years never happened.

But that moment passes...

...and everything comes crashing down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N-Just in case anyone was wondering what the OC'S look like, Enzo's wife 'Lyna' would be played by Michelle Trachtenberg and Elena's husband 'Evan' would be Mikkel Jensen.
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading and for the love of chocolate popcorn please review! ;) x


	4. Hate, guilt and bourbon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Bonnie's P.O.V**

I fight to control my wince when Damon and Elena lock eyes.

For the past four months Damon has spent almost the entire time talking about Elena. He's told me things about their relationship that I never knew. He's revealed all of his insecurities and more than once he let his guard down. Damon let me see the real him. The version of Damon Salvatore that I think Elena must have seen.

After four months alone with Damon I can finally understand how Elena could have fallen in love with him. I never thought I would be able to say that.

Damon has always been something of an enigma to me. When we first met I pinned him as a psychopathic monster. It's not like I was wrong in that assumption, because when we met he was a seemingly heartless vampire with zero empathy.

As time went on, and Damon changed into a slightly less psychotic monster, I learnt to tolerate his existence in my life. He was Elena's friend and Stefan's brother. There didn't seem to be any point in fighting it. He was in my life whether I wanted him to be or not.

Then Elena went and fell in love with him and a whole other problem arose from that. I realised I couldn't hate the man one of my closest friends clearly loved so much. I figured there had to be more to him than I thought if Elena was willing to put up with his shit.

I did try harder to understand him, I really did. But I swear every time I got close to thinking there might be something in Damon Salvatore worth caring about, he would smash that illusion to pieces. Usually by doing something horrific and violent.

I hated him, for such a long time I genuinely _hated_ him. I wanted him dead. In fact Damon was the first person I ever wished death upon. There's a chance I would have killed him a long time ago if it hadn't of been for Elena. He really does owe her his life, and not just because of me either.

But there were glimmers. Even in the very beginning. I don't think I really noticed until that day, years ago, when I helped the Salvatore's take out Mason Lockwood. There's still a small part of me that feels guilty about that, even after all this time.

Damon thanked me. For the first time he looked me in the eye and thanked me. Sincerely. It definitely threw me off balance to see such a look of naked honesty in those pale eyes of his. I'd never really had them focused on me like that before. He'd threatened me, of course, but even then I knew I didn't have his full attention.

For Damon, threatening people was basically his favourite pass time. I definitely wasn't special in that regard.

When he thanked me though, those intense eyes were completely dedicated to the short moment between us. That was when I realised Damon was capable of respecting someone. He didn't like me, hell, we had no reason to like each other at all. But he did respect me enough to thank me.

Even if I didn't fully realise it at the time, that meant something. To both of us I think.

I don't hate Damon anymore. He still infuriates me beyond reason, obviously, but there's definitely nowhere near the same amount of hostility between us as there was before.

I'm glad. Hating Damon took a lot more effort than I originally imagined.

I've wondered many times in the last four months if Elena ever felt this way. Before she fell in love with him I mean. Did she realise that giving into her…attachment…to Damon was a hell of a lot easier than fighting it?

Of course the situations are in no way the same. Elena is the love of Damon's life. I'm his friend, probably his best friend now. But still. Damon and I will never share the bond that he shares with Elena.

Right now I'm more than happy about that. Because whatever bond they shared has clearly just taken a massive hit.

 _Seventeen years_ ' worth of hits, actually.

Elena is staring at Damon like….like she can't believe he actually exists. Damon is staring right back at Elena with something very close to intense longing written all over him. The air between them crackles with energy. I see, even now, after such a long separation, they still share a powerful connection.

Of course that connection all but shatters when two things happen at once.

First a man I don't recognise takes a step towards Elena, concern and protectiveness radiating from him. He's tall, blond, handsome and just….maybe a little bit dangerous. I think some people give off that vibe without even meaning to.

It only serves to make the tension in the room skyrocket however.

I reach forward to touch Damon's arm even as his eyes narrow on Blondie. Elena looks away from Damon, and instead moves closer to the stranger. Clearly a man who isn't a stranger to her. My eyes zero in on the ring Elena is wearing and things start to make sense inside my head.

Damon is tense, his whole body rigid and ready for a fight. My touch causes him to relax somewhat, but not nearly enough to make me feel confident that this won't end violently if someone doesn't do something to settle the situation. Fast.

So of course the second important thing to happen would be Caroline springing into action.

"Lyna, could you take the kids upstairs for me, please." My old friend sounds so formal. Her voice is tight, with forced cheer that I know she can't possibly feel.

In some ways I understand her reaction to mine and Damon's return. If it really has been seventeen years for them, then they must have accepted that we would never come back a long time ago. Clearly they've all moved on with their lives.

I mean, fuck, either they started a very successful babysitting service or these children all belong to the adults in this room right now. The little blond boy who greeted us at the door is now settled on Stefan's hip. His blue eyes are wide and animated. I imagine this must all be quite exciting to a child who doesn't really understand what's going on.

I wish I didn't know what was going on. I'd probably be enjoying myself more.

Never in a million years could I have guessed that coming home would be like this. I feel completely cut off from everyone. Knowing it's been seventeen years for them just makes it even worse. I don't know these people anymore. My magic is gone, _again_ , and having that cut off too feels like the final nail in the coffin of my hopes for a smooth and uncomplicated reunification with my friends.

I should have known better after all these years of supernatural mind-fuckary.

Lyna is a beautiful women, but not obviously so. She has large grey doe eyes and a mouth that seems to naturally curve upwards into a smile even when she's frowning. I see her exchange a look with Enzo from across the room.

This whole time everyone has been staring at me and Damon, including all the children. I feel even more unsettled than I thought I would.

Enzo helps Lyna round up the protesting children. They leave the living room reluctantly. I see my friends in them. It's almost impossible to reconcile the idea of my friends having children. It's like I've fallen down the rabbit hole and landed in a strange land where nothing makes sense anymore. Actually it's worse than that, because everyone else seems to understand this world just fine.

Apart from maybe Damon, who still has his eyes trained on Elena. I feel a pang of sympathy coil inside my chest. I can't even imagine how devastated he must be right now.

Enzo takes the little boy from Stefan's arms, and I hear him chatter away to Enzo about his 'dead uncle Damon'.

Once all the children have been marched out, the energy in the room turns painfully uncomfortable.

I can feel Caroline buzzing next to me with barely restrained tension. Stefan places a hand on her back, and she appears to calm down some. She even leans into his touch again. The dynamic between them has changed. They're definitely more centred now. More comfortable with each other than I could have ever imagined them being.

They move in sync. Like they've been together for years. Well….I suppose they have. I haven't missed the wedding rings on their fingers.

Another thought hits me then. I missed it.

I missed weddings and birthdays and pregnancies and maybe even deaths. I missed _everything_. And I'll never get the chance to be there. To go back.

I've never felt more alone in my entire life than I do right now. Even when Grams died, and I was so angry at everything and everyone, I still knew I had my friends. I knew they were right there, even if I didn't want to see them at that very moment.

But now it's like I've lost them. All of them.

I've officially lost everything that mattered to me.

Damon's in front of me then. His hands are on my shoulders and he's saying,

"Just breathe, Bonnie. Breathe for me. It's ok. Just breathe."

Great, now I'm having my first real panic attack. Perfect. Fan-fucking-tastic.

I didn't even realise he'd moved at first. But Damon has finally taken his eyes off Elena and now he's focused on me. Completely. Just like that first time.

I wonder, for not the first time, how Elena could ever stand having someone look at you with this level of intensity all of the damn time. I think it'd lose my mind if it were me. But it wouldn't ever _be_ me, because I'm not Elena. I would never want to be Elena, although I do wish with everything in me that I'd of been here with her instead of in that damn prison world for all this time.

I try desperately to focus on Damon. I find it's not as hard to focus on just Damon as I thought it would be. Then again, no one can say that Damon Salvatore has no sense of presence. He fills up the entire room with his bad attitude alone.

My eyes meet his, and an understanding passes between us that helps me calm down more than anything he could have said. I see it, in his eyes. He feels it to. The disconnect between us and the others. It's a chasm so wide that I find it hard to believe we'll ever be on the same level with them again.

**Damon' s P.O.V**

Donovan is the first to step forward and hug Bonnie. He pulls her into a tight embrace, and I feel more than see her relief.

Of all of them, Matt is the only one who actually looks happy to see Bonnie. The others look something closer to mortified.

I almost want to shout at them for it. I don't particularly care how they treat me, but Bonnie deserves better than this. She always has.

I watch Bonnie as she hugs blond boy wonder for a long time. They're whispering something to each other that I can't hear. I instinctively try to tune in with my vampire hearing. But then I remember, right, no, I'm human now.

Even just the thought is gag-inducing.

I need to get the hell out of this town before my mind explodes from sheer frustration.

I don't even want to acknowledge the kids and the couples and the fact that my house doesn't even look like my house anymore.

I haven't felt this trapped in a long time. In fact I don't think I've felt this way since I was actually human over a hundred years ago. I thought I'd escaped this feeling. This feeling of aimlessness. It's like I'm drifting on the tide with no destination in mind.

I catch Bonnie's eye again and I feel suddenly grounded once more. If my humanity is the tide, then Bonnie Bennett is my lifeline. She smiles. It's a small thing. A sad smile. I want to tell her that things will get better. I want to tell her that our lives aren't as impossible as they seem right now.

But that would be a lie.

I have to force myself not to look at Elena. I'm not ready to face the agonising pain that will come hand in hand with the reality of having lost her. Because I have. I have lost her. If the look on her face when she saw me wasn't enough, then watching her with whoever the hell that blond guy is, would have told me all I needed to know.

It's over. For real this time.

I'm not at all sure how I'm going to handle that, so for now I'm going with denial. It worked for me last time I was human. I'm hoping it will still work for me now.

I find myself backing out of the room without even realising it. I have to get out of here before the questions start. I can't fucking stand the thought of standing here in this house and telling all these strangers, because _that_ is what they are now, what Bonnie and I have been through for the past four months.

Stefan is looking at me. He has that look on his face again. Elation mixed with confusion, like he isn't quite sure how to act around me anymore.

My brother and I have had a ridiculously complicated relationship for a long time now. We've gone longer than seventeen years without seeing each other before. But this feels different. Stefan has a life now. A real life. I can see it imprinted around me everywhere I look.

This house. That hospital employee identification tag on the table with the name 'Dr . Salvatore' printed on it in bold lettering. The blond kid who looks so much like Stefan did at his age that it blows my mind. Caroline, and their wedding photo sitting on the mantle.

All of it.

Stefan has a **_life_**. And not just a life. It's the life he always secretly wanted. The kids. The wife. The friends. The house. The job.

Having me come back into his life _now_ must be causing him to rethink every choice he's made since I died. I can already see the guilt beginning to eat away at him. It makes me irrationally angry, the way it always does, to see that guilt. It makes me feel responsible for putting it there.

I hate it when Stefan makes _me_ feel guilty for making _him_ feel guilty. It's a vicious circle that never seems to end with us. This is the exact kind of thing that made me hate him for so long. If my brother could be just a bit more selfish then we might get on a lot easier.

I tell myself I'm not running away from my brother. I'm running away from what I might say or do to him if I stay.

Even without my vampire speed I'm out of the boarding house before anyone can stop me. I have no idea where I'm actually heading for, but for now just ' _away_ ' sounds good.

The only thing I actually feel bad about is leaving Bonnie.

….

"It's sad that I could find you so easily."

I glare up at Alaric and reply,

"I didn't ask you to find me. And if you're my brother's idea of a search party, then you let him know that I am seriously offended."

Alaric smiles at me in that tolerant way of his. Like I'm just another one of his annoying students who he has to put up with.

I think that tolerance is the only reason why Alaric and I are still friends. Or we were anyway. Before I died. Again.

Alaric sits down next to me. I don't know what led me here, but I guess the place where I said goodbye to Elena, or more accurately where I let Elena say goodbye to me, is as good a place as any to fall apart.

The Salvatore crypt. It's like my own subconscious is mocking me.

"You haven't changed even a little bit have you?" Alaric says after a lengthy pause. There's a certain amount of amusement in his tone. But he also sounds resigned.

I think I bring those mixed feelings out in people who have known me for any length of time.

"You're really old." I say flippantly, not bothering to really look at him.

"Still younger than you, hot shot." Alaric quips easily.

I can't help the tiny smile that appears on my face.

"Yeah, but I don't look my age. You do." I say.

"I'll concede to that if you can tell me how old I am." Alaric arches an eyebrow at me challengingly.

I wave a hand to stall. I actually have no idea how old Alaric is. It's probably something I should know about my best friend. Former best friend.

"Uh…..three hundred and….fifty-six." I flash him a grin that I know for a fact doesn't come anywhere close to reaching my eyes.

Alaric rolls his own eyes and says dryly,

"I feel like I should have one of those 'A for effort' stickers to give you."

I let my head thump back against the stone wall and say,

"Oh yeah, how old am I then?"

"You're one hundred and seventy-seven. Your birthday is the 18th of June and you were born in 1839."

Damn him.

Sarcasm chills my tone,

"What's my favourite _colour_?"

"Silver." Alaric answers almost instantly.

Well, it's not like anyone was wondering which one of us was the better friend in our relationship. I'm pretty sure I've killed Alaric too many times to ever win that vote.

Alaric produces a bottle of bourbon then from the brown bag he'd been carrying. I decide that he is definitely the better friend.

"And you've let me waste time talking." I say, shaking my head.

Alaric smiles again and says,

"My old age has taught me the power of delayed gratification."

I snort out a laugh against my will.

We pass the bottle between us a few dozen times and for a single moment it's like no time has passed between us at all.

After a while I manage to drag myself out of the hole of self-pity I'd created and I say,

"You're not going to start getting all emotional, and then go on and on about your wife and your kids and how wonderful your life is now."

I have no doubt Alaric has a good life. If the rest of those idiots found happiness in this damn town, then I'm sure Alaric did too. That's probably the only good thing about any of this. But I'm never going to say that out loud.

Alaric does tell me about his doctor wife Jo and their twin girls and his job at the school and blah blah blah. I'm pretty sure he just does it to spite me. He knows I'm not really paying attention. Alaric understands me, or at least he tries to, which is more than I can say for most people who I've known in my life.

"You can come back and stay at mine tonight if you don't want to go..." Alaric trails off, his voice wavering.

I don't really want to move from this spot. But unless I want to replace my brother as the master brooder in our family, then I'm going to have to get over myself at some point. This whole being a human thing is really fucking up my internal monologue.

"I'd rather stay over at yours than face my brother and... _Elena_. But Bonnie's still with...them." I say.

Everything else might be fucked, but Bonnie...the thought of her is probably the only thing keeping me sane right now.


	5. Always and Never

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.
> 
>  
> 
> A/N-Because I love you all and because it's my birthday I've decided to upload two chapters in one go. Hope you enjoy them, please let me know what you think! xxx

**Bonnie's POV**

"We missed you so much Bonnie." Elena says, her dark brown eyes softening with that truthful edge it always used to carry.

I remember Elena looking at me that way a hundred times, a thousand times, since we met. Over twenty years of friendship. I've apparently been dead for almost that same amount of time. It's painful beyond measure to imagine Elena being forced to process both my death and Damon's.

Even back before I got to know Damon properly, I never would have wanted him to die. For Elena's sake. She loved him. Damon loved her. I loved Elena. We all did what we could to hold onto the people we loved.

But sometimes life is unfair in the extreme. We don't get what we want all the time. Hardly ever, actually.

I'd resigned myself to dying. Jeremy helped me handle being dead the first time when I brought him back to life at the expense of my own. I can't even imagine what Jeremy must have felt like when I died the second time. I think he would have been angry. Angry at me for dying. Angry at me for not telling him, for not letting him say goodbye in person.

I had my own reasons for that. Reasons that belong only to me.

After Damon left, I felt even more alone. Impossibly. Improbably. I couldn't stand being there in the boarding house with all the people I loved. People who have quite clearly moved on with their lives. Without me.

I don't blame them for it. Seventeen years is a long time. I wanted them to be happy, and from what I can see, they are. Of course I don't actually know, because I wasn't here. They could all be miserable and I wouldn't know that either.

I'm seriously starting to depress myself with all this woe-es-me type thinking. I'd say I can't help it, but that's not true. Part of me actually wants to drown in self-pity. It would be easier than actually facing the world right now.

Easier than facing my friends.

Matt hugged me, and I felt instantly a little better. Matt, more than anyone else, deserved to be happy. He was always the good guy. His whole life got turned around by vampires and magic and all that other shit, and he just kept on being Matt Donavon. I think I missed him the most.

I know that's strange to think, considering my best friends were Caroline and Elena. But Matt and I understood each other in a way Caroline and Elena could never even comprehend. Matt didn't want to be part of the supernatural world. He'd lost so much because of it, including his sister Vicki. For a long time I didn't want to be part of the supernatural either.

I fought my fate as a Bennett witch. I only took up my responsibilities when there was no other choice. When my friends needed me. I felt like the supernatural took everything from me. My Grams. My Dad. Even my Mom. My friends. My _life_.

Magic was destroying my life before I even knew it existed.

Then, when it finally revealed itself, I was dragged down the rabbit hole and forced to be part of it. Being a witch became all that I was. It threatened to consume me more than once. Like when Shane taught me Expression and I tapped into the darker parts of my own magic. My own self.

It was a mistake to push myself in that way. I know that now. But I can't exactly regret it either, because otherwise I never would have been able to bring Jeremy back after Katherine killed him. I couldn't ever regret saving Jeremy's life. He was just kid who didn't deserve to die. He especially did not deserve to be murdered in a place like that by the most psychotic woman who ever lived.

Stefan called Alaric to ask him to look for Damon. It was clear to me that Stefan was hurt by his brother leaving. I saw guilt and pain in his eyes. Knowing Stefan, he probably blames himself for not getting Damon back. He feels guilty for moving on with his life and letting go of his brother.

I can't decide what would piss Damon off more, the fact that his brother gave up on him, or the thought that Stefan is probably drowning himself in guilt right now.

Actually, now that I think about it, Damon will probably find a way to pissed off about both of those things. In fact he'll probably use those two things as an excuse for why he's so upset. When in reality I know he's actually heartbroken over Elena.

I mean, how could he not be? He waited years to get the girl. Then, when he finally had the girl, he died. And now he only just got the chance to get her back, and it's officially too late. Seventeen years too late. Elena is clearly married, quite possibly with children. That's about as 'too late' as you can be.

Caroline took me upstairs to get settled in one of the rooms. I feel exhausted, both physically and mentally, but part of me wanted to rip away from Caroline and run after Damon. Maybe he had the right idea by leaving.

Hell, maybe we should just leave Mystic Falls together and never come back. The idea, although dramatic, holds some appeal for me. I think I could probably even convince Damon to go along with it too.

It's not like either of us has anything to hold onto anymore. Not really. The lives we left aren't here anymore. They've been swept away by time. There's no chance of us finding our way back to how things used to be. I can't even remember what it felt like to know who I was and what I wanted from my life.

Before….before I was sentenced to that prison world, I didn't have the chance to think in depth about anything. Just surviving took all my strength, and saving the people I cared for took up all of my attention. I didn't so much live in the world, I just existed in it.

There was always something. Always some crisis that needed my attention. Always some big, bad, evil that I had to help destroy or control or stop. There was always someone to save, someone to bring back, someone to find.

I understand now what my mother once tried to tell me. She left when I was three years old because she was given the chance to start over. She'd spent her whole life being a Bennett witch instead of a person. I can't say I'd ever make the same selfish choice to leave my own daughter behind. If for no other reason than because I know how much that hurts.

I know what it feels like to wonder over and over again what you did wrong. Why you weren't enough. How someone who is supposed to love you more than anything else in the world, could just leave and never come back.

So, no, I could not…. _would_ not do what my mother did. It isn't who I am, witch or not. I wouldn't run away from my problems just because I could.

But maybe I would at least consider it. For a moment. Well, actually, that's exactly what I'm doing. I don't even need to leave my old life behind, because it's been taken away from me instead. You can't abandon what is no longer there.

I think everyone else has gone home. It's just Elena and Caroline who came to the room with me. Despite my reverie I'm momentarily stunned by how different the boarding house looks now. Caroline really did go to town. At least, I'm quite sure it was Caroline who remodelled the boarding house. It has her brand stamped all over it.

If I'd actually been here to see it, I'd say the boarding house looks beautiful. Stylish. Homey. But since I wasn't here to see everything change, part of me can't help but hate it. I know that Damon definitely will, even if he won't admit it.

This is supposed to be his home. But then, a lot of things are _supposed_ to be, but aren't.

I sit in the middle of a big king sized bed, with Caroline and Elena sat on either side of me. I think I've gotten to the point where I'm too tired to feel overwhelmed. Considering all the things I've been through before now, that thought makes me want to laugh. I would laugh too, but I'm afraid it will come out sounding more than a little deranged.

I really don't want to freak everyone out more than I clearly already have.

Elena reaches out to take my hand in hers, and Caroline follows suit. I let them grip my hands tightly. Desperately. I can tell they want this to be ok as much as I do. But it isn't, and there's nothing any of us can say that will make it ok either.

I don't say that though. I don't need to. They know. We all know.

"I'm sorry that I'm acting so weird." Caroline says suddenly, the words bursting out of her in a wave of regret. "I just don't know what to say, and you know what I'm like when I think too much about something and all I can do is think about you and how much we wanted you here with us and how awful it felt to lose you and how we shouldn't have stopped trying to get you back because-"

I tug my hand away from Elena and press my hand to Caroline's mouth before she literally explodes.

"Woah, Care, I think you just word vomited all over us. Don't hurt yourself."

I take my hand away when Caroline rolls her eyes in that way she has when she's frustrated and doesn't know what else to do. Sympathy pools inside me, despite everything. I know this can't be easy for her. It can't be easy on any of them. It certainly isn't for me.

Again, I kind of wish Damon was here. If only so he could make some obnoxious joke that would completely distract me into bickering with him about nothing important.

Elena takes a deep breath and shifts closer to me on the bed. Her eyes are earnest.

"You need to know that we thought about you Bonnie." She says firmly. She's using a tone that I don't recognise. Not coming from her anyway. It's serious though. "We thought about you all the time. Whenever something big happened we wished you were there with us. You should have been. I know that probably doesn't mean much, but it's true. You never stopped mattering to us."

I want to ask if Damon stopped mattering to her. But that definitely isn't my place, or my business. I don't even know why I want to ask it. For Damon's sake, probably. We became friends in that damn prison world, and that friendship still holds even though we're back home.

I also want to believe what Elena is saying. I want to believe it so badly. Badly enough that it physically hurts to think about it not being true.

Elena must see the indecision in my eyes, because she looks beseechingly over at Caroline. Caroline squeezes my hand in hers and says something I didn't even know I needed to hear.

"We told our children about you."

I have no idea why that even matters to me at all. But somehow it does.

"We told them how brave and selfless and wonderful you were, Bonnie." Caroline continues, her eyes going glassy.

"We told them how most of us would not be here without you." Elena's voice thickens on the last few words.

Both of my best friends are so close to bursting with emotion. I can see a cry fest coming on, big time.

But I don't want that. I'm not strong enough for it. Not now. I need more time to process….to really take in everything that has changed. There's so much I need to know. So much I want to know. About my friends, and their lives. I want to know everything. But asking for it all now would only scramble my brain even worse than it already has been today.

Although I'm not sure if that's actually possible.

I ask them a few things though. I ask them about their kids. They both have two. Elena has two girls Miranda Knight and Isobel Knight. Caroline has a boy, D. Gabriel Salvatore, and a girl Elizabeth Lexi Salvatore. Gabriel was the boy I met at the door. He has Caroline's eyes, but everything else about him is all Stefan.

Elena tells me a bit about Evan, her husband. He's a werewolf. I was right in thinking there's more to him than a hot blond guy. He has a murky past, a past that involved very dubious morals. Elena didn't go into too much detail about that, but I figure it sounds about right. After falling for both Stefan Salvatore and then Damon Salvatore, I'm not all surprised that she would fall in love with another dangerous man.

A dangerous man, who according to Caroline, worships the ground Elena walks on. Also not a surprise to me.

I almost wince when Elena talks about Evan. I can see the light in her eyes, the intense love she so clearly feels for him. I hope Damon doesn't have to see that look any time soon. It would crush him. Hell, it partially crushes me, and that's just my sympathy for Damon.

Caroline tells me about her and Stefan. She explains how it was a bumpy road with a lot of ups and downs at first. But when they finally got it right….it was so _right_. She said they both wondered how they'd been constantly getting it wrong all those years.

I hate that I wasn't there for Caroline when her mom died. I know how hard that must have been for Caroline. After everything Liz survived, it must have been heartbreaking to lose her, let alone to Cancer of all things. Caroline describes to me how Stefan was there for her, even when she told him not to be, he was still there.

I'm glad my friend had that. I'm glad she had someone who would stand by her no matter what happened.

I ask about Jeremy, because I have to. I need to know that he's ok. He deserves to be ok.

Elena gets all stone-faced then and tells me about how Jeremy's hunting, along with his hunter girlfriend, Alicia. I'm shocked to hear that Jeremy has a son. A little boy named Cody. I remember him vaguely from earlier. He looked small and quiet, but strong too, underneath it all.

Caroline and Elena seemed to avoid the topic of how I came back for as long as they could. But finally Caroline breaks, because of course it's Caroline, and she asks me how I did it. How I came back from the dead. Again. With Damon in tow.

I tell them all about the prison world and Kai. By the end of that particularly fucked up story, both Elena and Caroline are staring at me in what I think is disbelief. They manage to shake it off though. Elena's expression changes every time I mention Damon's name. So much emotion. I can't even pinpoint exactly how she feels about Damon anymore. It might be that Elena doesn't know how to feel either.

Elena hasn't talked about how she got over Damon at all. I know it must be an important story, but apparently she's putting off having to tell it. I don't want to push. Maybe it's just too painful, too raw, to talk about.

It feels like we've been talking for days, when it could have only been a handful of hours. But Elena finally says she's got to leave, otherwise Evan will worry about her. Evan had to take the girls home for bed. Stefan has put Gabriel to bed, and Elizabeth put herself to bed.

"I'm going to take the day off tomorrow, Bonnie," Elena says as she pulls me into a solid hug. "I'll come over and we'll spend the day together."

A day off from the hospital. Elena is a doctor. So is Stefan. They work together at the hospital. Even thinking about that blows my mind a little bit.

I hug Elena back, and try not to seem too eager for her to leave. Not because I'm angry at her or anything like that. I just really need some time to think, otherwise my head will explode.

Caroline offers to sleep in this room tonight with me. But I decline, for two reasons, firstly because I can tell she wants really badly to talk this all through with Stefan. Her husband Stefan. Father of her children Stefan. That feels so weird to think. Secondly because, like I said, I am in desperate need of some freak out time. In peace.

So Caroline eventually leaves me here.

And I stay in the room for as long as I can stand it. I wait until everyone else in the mansion is asleep, and then I get up. I'm not sure exactly where I want to go. But I can't stay in that guest room for another second without losing my mind.

After wandering aimlessly through the boarding house for a few minutes, creeping myself out a little bit to be honest, I find myself standing outside of Damon's door. According to Caroline, Damon's room is the one place Stefan asked her not to touch. She of course respected Stefan's wishes and left Damon's room as it was before.

I don't even know why I'm here. I open the door and go inside. The floor boards creak loudly under my feet and I cringe. I close the door firmly behind me and walk through the dark room. I think about turning on the light, but then decide against it.

I climb up into Damon's bed and lay down in the middle of it. It smells musky and old in here. I guess that's what seventeen years of neglect will do. For some unknown reason though, I feel more comfortable in here than I did in the other room. Maybe it's just the reminder that Damon is probably feeling the same way that I am. It's oddly comforting.

I don't know how much time passes, because I think I fell asleep for a little while, but sometime later I wake up to the sound of noises by the bedroom door. I blink a few times, trying to see even in the dark from my position on the bed.

A very Damon shaped dark blob moves towards me. I shift over a bit on the bed and Damon falls down next to me. We lay there in silence for a long time. I can feel the heat of his body so close to mine. A thrum of energy passes between us, and it spreads through me like a wave of warmth.

I reach out and slide my hand along his arm until I find his hand. I pause for a moment, wondering if my touch will be welcome or not. Damon answers my unasked question by taking hold of my hand and lacing our fingers together.

Something inside me settles at that contact.

"What are we going to _do_?" I ask, my words swallowed up by the darkness all around us.

There's silence. Breathing. Damon's chest and mine moving up and down. Our hearts beating to the same rhythm for the first time.

Then,

"We're gonna do what people like you and me always do Bon Bon."

"Which is?" I ask, anticipating his answer more than I want to.

Damon lets out a gust of air, somewhere between a growl and a sigh. I can feel his eyes on me even in the dark.

"We find out what we have to know. We process it however we need to. And then we get on with our lives. Just like always."

" _Just like always_." I repeat the words to myself. I repeat them over and over again inside my head until the words start to blur and I fall into the oblivion of sleep.


	6. Uncle Damon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Damon's POV**

When I wake up, my head is surprisingly clear.

I expected at least a mild headache from last night. But apparently my human tolerance for alcohol is better than I remember. Either that or Ric took the bottle away from me before I could do any real damage to myself.

It would be just like him to do something annoying like that.

I don't really remember much from last night. I know Ric took me home, even though I snapped at him about five times that I don't need a babysitter to walk me to my own fucking front door. Then when we got to the boarding house, Ric was just staring at me and giving me this meaningful ' _look_ ' of his. It pissed me off, so I told him if he was waiting for a goodnight kiss then he would be waiting for a long time, because our first date was terrible.

Ric scoffed at that and rolled his eyes. He continued to look at me fondly though. It was weird as hell. It's a good thing Ric was pretty much my only friend when I died, because I could not handle everyone looking at me like that. I don't know how Bonnie can stand it.

Then again, Bonnie actually deserves all the love people give her. In fact she deserves a lot more than she gets.

Damn Ric for trying to take care of me when all I really want to do is go into self-destruct mode. I would do it too. I would quite enthusiastically throw myself off the rails and drown my every pathetic sorrow in alcohol, sex, blood or murder. Actually, given the circumstances, it'd probably be all four.

But I can't. Well, I can. But I won't. Probably.

I was reminded of the reason why not when I got back to the boarding house and went to my room. I'd been half afraid that Stefan had let Blondie loose on my room the same way he had with the rest of the mansion. Fortunately, from what I could see in the dark, my room had been left untouched by interfering Blondie hands.

God only knows how my brother can stand being married to that woman. I had hoped his infatuation with her was some sort of phase, but no, apparently the oh so bossy blond one is going to be part of my life forever. I'm sure we're both equally overjoyed about that prospect.

When I saw Bonnie led down in the middle of my bed, something inside me snapped back into place. I forced myself to stop brooding. I've never been very good at it anyway. Anger and destruction is more my way of handling feelings I don't like, or simply refuse to deal with.

If it was anyone else, then I wouldn't care. I'd probably switch off my humanity and leave Mystic Falls. Maybe for good this time. There should be nothing for me here. Elena is…well, Elena, the best thing that ever happened to me, the love of my life, is gone. Actually, she's worse than gone. Elena is right here. Alive. Human. Married. She's a mother for fucks sake. I'm not even going to think about competing with that.

My brother is here, of course, but anyone with half a brain can see that he has a great life. He's better off without me. That's just a fact. I can't even really blame him for moving on with his life. After everything I've put him through. There are some things you just can't take back. Some things that can't be fixed no matter how much time passes. That whole 'time heals all wounds' thing is bullshit.

So, yeah, I could have done what I always do. I could have told the world to fuck off like I really wanted to. But when I laid down next to Bonnie Bennett and she took my hand and asked me what **_we_** were going to do. Like it was inevitable that whatever came next, she and I would deal with it together. I realised I couldn't take off this time. I couldn't leave Bonnie alone in a world neither of us are a part of anymore.

There was no way in hell I could leave, both figuratively and literally, without Bonnie. She was there for me when I needed somebody. Bonnie Bennett was the one person who stopped me from losing my mind, and my damn hope, in that prison world. I wouldn't be alive without her.

I owe Bonnie Bennett more than I could ever possibly repay. And moreover I don't want to let go of the one person who might understand just how much all of this royally sucks.

I open my eyes and blink a few times. There's light spilling in from the window, it burns my corneas good morning. I lift a hand to run a hand through my hair. It's about then that I realise I'm definitely trapped on this bed by another warm body.

Now, this isn't altogether a bad thing. But I have a feeling the body currently tangled up with mine would be less enthused if she were awake.

Bonnie has her cheek pressed against my chest, our legs are officially twined together and I've got my other arm wrapped around her, my grip tight. I don't even know how we've managed to get into this position without waking up and noticing.

I clear my throat, chasing away the grogginess, and brush some of Bonnie's dark hair out of her face. She's still soundly asleep, her eyes closed and little puffs of air blowing out of her mouth every few seconds. It's almost like she's snoring, but not quite, because it's too soft and quiet. Like whisper-snoring. I smile to myself, thinking about how offended Bonnie would be if I actually said that to her. She'd probably attack me with a pillow.

"Bon Bon," I say, gently tugging on a strand of her hair, "time to wakey wakey now and stop groping me."

Bonnie's face screws up, her nose doing that crinkling thing it does when she's annoyed about something. One of her eyes flickers open suddenly. The green of her iris looks particularly vibrant in the morning light.

Or at least I think its morning light. What the hell time is it anyway?

Bonnie mirrors my thoughts by lifting her head slightly off my chest, looking me in the eye and saying sleepily,

"What time is it? You better be waking me up because it's the morning."

Unable to help myself, I ask,

"What else would I be waking you up for exactly?" I raise my eyebrows suggestively.

Bonnie glowers at me. She reminds me of a mean cartoon rabbit trying to stare down a wolf.

"You're an idiot." Bonnie snips at me, green eyes flashing with irritation, "It's good to know that your vampirism wasn't the cause of your dickdom."

I smirk at her,

"No, my dickdom was already well established. Becoming a vampire merely allowed me to use it without having to worry about pesky little humans getting in my way."

"I dislike you." Bonnie grumbles.

"Well that's not true at all." I say, shaking my head mockingly.

Bonnie gives me an unimpressed look, and she opens her mouth to reply. But before Bonnie can get a word out we're both attacked by a tiny blond dynamo. The door to my room bangs open, hitting the wall with a headache inducing thud.

Tiny blond dynamo runs towards us at full speed and quite literally throws himself up onto the bed. I'm almost certain he'll end up flat on his face, but at the last minute Tiny does a weird half forward roll and ends up half on top of me and Bonnie.

"Uncle Damon!" Tiny shouts excitedly, "Auntie Bonnie! Breakfast! Daddy says it's time for breakfast! You have to wake up and come downstairs!"

I groan loudly and close my eyes. Uncle Damon? _Christ_. **No.**

Stefan should have raised his son to _fear me_. Beware of Uncle Damon, he should have said. The great big monster Uncle Damon who does not like to be jumped on by tiny blond thingies. Even if they are related to him.

"Hey...kid." I say.

I am not used to dealing with kids. At all. Kids don't usually like me, and I don't like them on principle. Apparently this kid didn't get the memo.

Bonnie raises an eyebrow at me, and I widen my eyes in a 'what' kind of gesture.

Tiny is grinning at me. He looks so much like Stefan did when he was a kid. Even though it was over a hundred and fifty years ago, I still remember Stefan as the eager to please little boy he was back then. He was a momma's boy, even after our mother died. He was my baby brother, who I tried my best to protect from our monster of a father. Since Stefan was the one to kill our father, I'm not sure if I succeeded in that or not.

"Good morning Gabriel." Bonnie says, her voice going slightly higher in that way most people's do when they're talking to young children.

"Why are you cuddling?" Tiny asks curiously, as he tilts his head slightly to the side.

It's just about then that Bonnie realises how close we are and her eyes blow wide. I keep my smirk to myself, barely, as Bonnie frantically tries to disentangle herself from me.

"Auntie Bonnie had a bad dream last night and needed a hug." I tell Tiny.

Bonnie growls at me, but says nothing to dispute my explanation.

"That happens to me sometimes," Tiny says a bit too seriously to Bonnie. "Daddy reads me a story when I'm scared, and Mommy makes me Hot choccy with extra choc."

 _Oh for the love of_ -

"That sounds really wonderful, Gabriel. Maybe your Mom will make me some next time." Bonnie says sweetly, her smile annoyingly genuine.

"Don't tell me now all your friends have kids, your biological clock is starting to tick." I say, and that earns me a swift glare from Bonnie and a smack to my arm.

Tiny giggles and grabs hold of my hand. He starts pulling on my hand, putting all of his non-existent strength into it. Bonnie gives me a 'don't be a grinch' look and I roll my eyes at her. But I take the hint and allow Tiny to pull me out of bed.

"Come on! Come on!" Tiny starts chanting, getting a bit more aggressive with his pulling as he leads me towards the hallway.

I look back at Bonnie when she says,

"I'm gonna take a quick shower, I'll meet you down there in a minute."

I glare mutinously at her and mouth 'traitor', Bonnie pokes her tongue out just a little bit at me in response.

I barely resist the urge to huff.

Tiny insistently drags me downstairs with him, chattering to me all the way. He talks about his toys and his story books and his favourite wellies and his friends and his Daddy and his room and his favourite type of candy and blah blah blah-oh my God how does Stefan deal with this on a daily basis? It's clear that Blondie passed on her blabbering gene to her son.

Luckily Tiny doesn't seem to expect me to actually reply when he talks to me, so I can get away with only half paying attention. The other half of my attention is on the new décor of my God damned house. Blondie really did strip everything down to basics and start over again.

If I was being kind, I'd say it looks warm and inviting. But I'm not kind, so I think it looks terrible, like I've just walked onto the set of an ABC family show or something.

Tiny takes me to the kitchen and Jesus Christ it looks like Betty Crocker threw up in here.

Stefan's other kid is sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of toast placed in front of her, although Blondie 2.0's attention seems to be taken up completely by her mobile phone. She clicks away at it with a determined look on her face.

"Uncle Damon is here!" Tiny announces excitedly.

Blondie 2.0 looks up briefly from her phone. She looks me up and down and then sniffs indifferently,

"Right." She says, narrowing her eyes at me, "So, you came back from the dead?"

"Pretty much." I reply with a half shrug.

Blondie 2.0 makes a face and says thoughtfully,

"It probably would've been better if you'd have come back sooner."

Yep, that's definitely Blondie's kid. Zero filter between the brain and the mouth.

"Well, I'll keep that in mind for next time." I say, forcing a smile. I don't think Stefan would approve of me snapping at his daughter. Although why I care what Stefan would approve of is a mystery to me.

Blondie 2.0 dismisses me with a snort and goes back to clicking away on her phone.

Tiny, not to be ignored, starts pulling me further into the kitchen. He says,

"Uncle Damon, can you make me some cereal…. _please_?"

Every part of me wants to say no. But that stupid blond kid just keeps staring at me, big blue eyes all wide and expectant.

"Alright, fine, just stop giving me the puppy eyes and I'll do your bidding you little imp."

Tiny beams at me.

Where the hell are Stefan and Caroline? I've only been back a day and they've already got me babysitting their blond spawn.

Tiny directs me to a cupboard filled with ten different types of cereal. He dithers for a full five minutes before asking for the Fruit loops and the Coco puffs. I take out both of the boxes and put them on the counter. Then he tells me he actually wants the Coco shreddies and the Rice puffs. I go back and get those out. Tiny makes a face and changes his mind again, asking me to get the Fruit loops back out instead. We go through at least seven different combinations before he settles on his original choice, the Fruit loops and the Coco puffs.

I think this kid is trying to break me.

I lift Tiny up onto the counter next to the boxes. He sits on the edge, swinging his legs back and forth (still chattering away at me) whilst I go and grab the milk from the fridge. He then tells me I need to use the Dairy farm milk, not the Dairy barn milk. I make the mistake of asking what the difference is and Tiny starts blabbering on about organic vs non-organic calcium based products and I consider shooting myself. Eventually I give in and just go back to the fridge to get the other almost identical milk carton so he'll stop lecturing me about milk.

Tiny also tells me where the bowls are when I ask, and he instructs me to get the blue bowl with the green poka dots, not the green bowl with the blue poka dots or the blue bowl with the green stars or the green bowl with the blue stripes.

I'm definitely going insane. There's no way he's not doing this on purpose.

I slam the bowl down onto the counter and pick up a box to start pouring some cereal in. Tiny stops me by snatching the box away. He shakes his head rapidly.

"No Uncle Damon!"

I frown at him, nearing the end of my patience,

"What? Did I get the wrong bowl? The wrong cereal? The wrong milk? Are you sitting on the wrong counter? Do you have a counter where you only ever eat cereal?"

I would not put it past this kid to actually have a special place where he eats his cereal.

Tiny looks at me like he has no idea what I'm talking about, which somehow frustrates me even more.

"No, Uncle Damon."

"Then what is it?" I ask, quietly, forcing myself not to be enraged. It's actually a lot easier to do that now that I'm not a vampire. Go figure.

Tiny reaches over and taps the milk with two fingers,

"Milk first."

I gape at him. No, now that really is too much.

Just then Stefan walks in. He actually smiles at me, the bastard.

"What kind of backward-ass insanity have you been teaching this child, little brother?" I ask him.

Stefan, for his part, doesn't seem all that surprised by outburst.

Tiny gasps and pokes me on shoulder,

"Daddy! Uncle Damon said a bad word!" He gives me a very serious look, "Now you have to put a dollar in the swear pig."

I don't even want to know what that means. I really don't.

"Your son thinks its ok to put the milk in first!" I say to Stefan, sounding scandalised against my will.

Stefan smiles again (double bastard), his eyes darting between me, his son, and the cereal. He apparently comes to some sort of conclusion.

"I always put the milk in first too." Stefan says with a shrug.

I shake my head at him,

"I see seventeen years hasn't made you any less of a weirdo then."

Tiny starts giggling again. Even Blondie 2.0 cracks a small smile.

Stefan comes over to us and tries to fill Tiny's bowl with milk, but Tiny stops him. Oh God, what now?

"I want Uncle Damon to do it." Tiny says.

That evil little shit.

I sigh heavily and snatch the bowl and the milk away from Stefan. Even though it goes against everything I believe in, I pour the milk in first and then add the cereals, with Tiny telling me how much cereal to add from each box.

"Where were you? Shouldn't these children be supervised by a responsible adult?" I say to Stefan.

Stefan smiles loving at his son and replies,

"You were here."

I say dryly,

"I said _responsible_ adult, Stefan. Of which I definitely am not."

"You can be responsible." Stefan says.

"Ok, look, I know it's been a long time for you, but there is not, and has never been, anything _responsible_ about me."

Tiny's eyes are flickering between me and his father as he eats massive spoonfuls of sugary cereal. He better be at school by the time that sugar high hits his system. He'll probably end up doing handstands whilst he chatters on about what his top ten favourite cereals are and detailed reasons why he likes them.

Caroline suddenly comes striding into the room with one of those big sunshine smiles on her face. Bonnie comes in trailing after her. It seems she was caught up in the whirlwind that is Blondie.

Bonnie actually looks a lot more refreshed than she did when we woke up. Maybe if I have a shower too I won't feel so much like I'm about to explode.

Caroline drags Bonnie over to kitchen table and pushes her into a seat.

"I'll get you some breakfast Bonnie. What do you want? Toast? Bacon and eggs? Pancakes? I can make some pancakes real quick." Caroline says earnestly. She's practically bouncing on the spot with barely contained energy.

Bonnie looks over at and we share are mutual understand for the third time in the last twenty-four hours.

I made pancakes for Bonnie practically every day over in the prison world. If either of us never eats pancakes again, it'll still be too soon.

"Anything but pancakes, Care." Bonnie says to Caroline, but she doesn't look away from me.

"Yeah, Bonnie only likes _my_ pancakes now." I say. I pick up Tiny and take him over to the table with me to sit with Bonnie.

"Your pancakes are literally the most terrible things I have ever put in my mouth." Bonnie says.

I open my mouth with an obvious response to that one, but Bonnie smacks my arm again and says,

"Don't you dare."

I smile at her innocently,

"You love my pancakes Bonnie. Admit it, you want me to open up a pancake shop and name it after you in your honour."

Bonnie laughs.

"Open a pancake shop and call it 'Bonnie's pancakes'? That's your new life plan?"

I scoff,

"No. It would be called 'BonBoncakes' and I would be so successful with my pancake business. People would come from far and wide to watch the infamous Bon Bon eat my pancakes."

"Oh, so now _I'm_ working at the pancake shop too?"

"Well, yeah, how could I open a pancake shop without you being there to eat my pancakes? The whole thing would be pointless without you."

"What are they talking about?" I hear Caroline ask.

Stefan replies, nonplussed,

"I think they took drugs over in the prison world and they're still shaking off the after affects. Oh, and something about pancakes."

"You know I don't need to be a vampire to hear you talking about me when you're only standing five feet away." I say.

Caroline rolls her eyes, and Stefan just smiles into what looks like a cup of coffee.

Eventually Stefan and Caroline join us at the table, bringing cups of coffee and cinnamon toast with them.

Tiny is apparently almost done with his cereal by then, because he starts chattering at me again. I hold in a groan and send Stefan a glare. This is his fault. He is the one who created the new bane of my existence. Because of course he did.

I let Tiny's words wash over me right up until he says something that actually catches my attention.

"We have the same name, Uncle Damon."

I look at him then and Tiny reaches over to touch my hand with his much smaller one.

"Your name's Gabriel." I say. Right? That is what Bonnie and Stefan said before?

"Daddy gave me your name because you died and Daddy missed you."

Stefan sucks in a sharp breathe as Tiny continues to explain,

"Gabriel is my middle name. My first name is Damon. But everyone calls me Gabe or Gabriel because it makes Daddy sad to hear your name. Not anymore though, because now you're alive and Daddy doesn't have to be sad anymore."

I have absolutely no idea what to say to that.

Neither does anybody else at the table apparently. Tiny, completely oblivious to the cause of his words, goes on chattering away about everything and nothing at the same time.

I feel a hand on my knee and I put my hand under the table so that Bonnie can squeeze it comfortingly. Oddly, it does make feel little bit less strange. I'm not sure how to deal with the fact that my brother named his son after me. It's not something I ever thought I'd have to think about.

I chance a look at Stefan, instantly regretting it when I see the pained look in Stefan's eyes. Damn him. Caroline is clutching Stefan's arm, a worried expression on her face.

I push away from the table suddenly, unable to take the tension in the room for another second. I'm sure they're all staring at me as I stalk out of the kitchen. I need to get out. Coming back here was a mistake. I should have left last night.

Unfortunately when I get to the front door and throw it open, someone I really didn't need to see is standing there.

Elena looks up at me, surprise washing over her beautiful face. She bites her bottom lip and her stance changes a little, making the ex-love of my life look more determined as she says,

"I think we need to talk, Damon."

I would rather drown myself in battery acid. But from the resolute glint in Elena's eyes, I'm guessing she's not going to give me a choice on this one.


	7. Escape back home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Damon's P.O.V**

I could quite happily go the rest of my life without actually having this particular conversation.

Well, alright, 'happy' might be pushing it a little bit. But I could certainly do without having to replay this moment to myself over and over again for the next century.

None of this is Elena's fault, not really. She thought I was dead, which means of course she had to move on. Seventeen years is a lot of time to give up on a dead man.

So, no, I don't blame her for choosing to make a real life for herself. A human life even, which is what she always wanted anyway. I've known that since the moment Elena became a vampire in the first place. Being a vampire was never the life she wanted for herself.

Elena wasn't a bad vampire, or at least not as bad as Stefan was at first. But she never revelled in it. Not even when she lost her humanity. Elena killed a few people, yes, but she didn't murder dozens of strangers. Elena didn't try and destroy the people she'd cared about before she lost her humanity. If anything Elena was just slightly more Katherine-esqe than usual.

Elena Gilbert was the most human vampire there has ever been.

I, on the other hand, love being a vampire. I can admit that to myself at least. I love the speed, the strength, the superior senses, the eternal youth. I even love the feeding. But most of all I love how everything seems to feel like **_more_** when you're a vampire. Lust, joy, anger, sorrow, hatred, love—every emotion and reaction is heightened to an almost impossible degree.

I miss that. Even now, after only a day of being human. I would always miss it, which I suppose might as well be a curse.

People aren't supposed to _want_ to be vampires. It wrecks the balance of the universe.

Vampires are monsters. Predators. That's just a fact. Most people can't handle becoming a nightmare in physical form. I certainly didn't think I would be able to. The only reason I wanted to be a vampire all those years ago was because of Katherine, and then I actually became a vampire because of my brother.

Now one those people (the bitchy one) is dead, and the other (broody one) is human. Or at least playing the part pretty damn well.

What I'm trying to get my head around isn't why Elena would get on with her life after I died, because I already know the answer to that, but rather how I ever thought we had a chance in the first place when I was actually alive. Or semi-alive. Whatever.

I can see it now, as a human, in a way I couldn't see it as a vampire.

Elena and I were always doomed to fail. Even if I'd been here all this time. When the town became a no magic zone and the vampires poofed back into humans. I honestly don't know how long I would have lasted, but if I'm being truthful with myself then my restraint probably wouldn't have lasted all that long.

I don't know if I would have been able to give up my life as vampire. Even for a woman I'd been in love with for years.

I can't help but remember that day, a day that feels so fucking long ago now, but ironically must feel even longer for Elena, when we were on the Island, looking for the cure. Elena asked me take the cure with her. She wanted us to be human together and have a human life.

Like it was just that easy. For either of us.

Me becoming human wouldn't have suddenly turned me into a different person. I know that now if nothing else. I would still have been a selfish, bluntly narcissistic, asshole. Human or not. Vampire or not. Those things are just part of who I am. They aren't _all_ that I am, I know that too. But they are there, inside me. It's likely that they always will be to some extent.

If over a hundred and sixty years didn't break me out of it, then nothing probably ever will. And I'm fine with that. I've reconciled myself with the darker parts of my personality. I won't pretend I'm sorry for who I am, because it would be a lie if I did.

Not that I'm incapable of guilt, whatever my brother might have once thought. I've just never seen the point in wallowing. Stefan would probably argue that I did my fair share of brooding over Katherine. But I like to think that was more of a carefully cultivated obsession that got turned into burning hatred when I realised the truth of who I was actually dealing with.

Part of the reason why I fell in love with Elena in the first place was that she saw something in me worth saving. It meant everything to me at the time that someone like Elena Gilbert would care about me so strongly. Even if part of the reason was because of Stefan.

Elena, in the first year that we knew each other, would have this certain way of looking at me. It was an expression I'd never quite seen before on anyone else, especially directed at me. She looked at me in the same way I imagine a Disney princess would look at something forbidden.

Getting interest from women has never been a problem for me. That isn't even my ego talking, it's just the truth. But with Elena it was different. She wanted me. She wanted me even before either of us knew she did. And way before she was willing to admit it to anyone, let alone herself.

As the years went on though, and our relationship twisted and changed, Elena stopped watching me, caring about me, with such obvious trepidation. She started to trust me, and I think Elena saw past most of the bullshit I bare to the world to protect myself.

Inevitable. That's what part of me thought Elena and I were. Unescapable. Inexorable. Against all odds. End game.

And maybe we would have been.

If I hadn't died. If I'd of come back sooner like the evil blond spawn of my little brother and Blondie suggested. If it hadn't of been too late by the time I reached Bonnie that night.

But then, as strange as it seems to me even now, I hate to think of Bonnie going through what we did on her own. I hate the idea that she would have been alone. Or worse, alone with just Kai the bumbling sociopath for company.

Bonnie is my friend, and someone I can't stop myself from caring about. Even if there was some way for me to go back and change things, I wouldn't do it. Not if that meant not being there for Bonnie. In all honesty I think I needed her more than she needed me in that prison world, but that isn't really the point.

Elena and I walking together, but not talking. I don't know if she needs to build up to what she wants to say or something, but I'm in no rush to start the conversation. All I can really concentrate on is that Elena has the same look on her face that she did all those years ago. Like I'm forbidden to her again. And maybe I am because Elena is married and she has children and because of those things nothing I could ever do or say would make a dent in the protective wall surrounding her now.

The fact that I don't even want to try is something that both confuses and, oddly, relieves me.

I've never been particularly good at handling strong emotions. But maybe now because I'm human, at least for the moment, I can more clearly see is and what is not acceptable. Even in such a fucked up situation, I'm trying not to let it overwhelm me.

The fact is that I've tried very hard not to be selfish with Elena, for her sake, and I don't want to screw that up now just because I'm burning with the need to destroy something. Kill someone maybe. A few someones even.

I just have to get out of this fucking town first.

But before I can do that I have to take part in the most awkwardly painful conversation of my life. And I've had a few of those, so that is really saying something.

Elena appears to decide on the right words when we reach the cemetery, which is morbidly appropriate actually. Considering all the loss we've experienced since we met. Mostly by me killing people at first, but still.

"I'm not sure what to say." Elena starts, clearly nervous.

It's very warm and summery out today, the sun is glaring down at Mystic Falls. I wish I could glare down at it as well.

"I'm not angry Elena." I lie. Elena actually sucks in a harsh breathe when I say her name. I have to remind myself yet again how long it's been for her since she last saw me, or heard my voice. Over seventeen years since she last heard me say her name.

"You're always a little bit angry about most things, Damon." Elena says, and damn, even though it's only been four months for me, my name tripping off her tongue still affects me more than I want it to.

"Not about this." I lie again.

I feel so weirdly closed off from her. I don't know why that is, but its part of what's keeping me sane so I'm holding onto it.

"If you want to pretend we can just forget about everything, then we can do that." Elena says, her expression soft with understanding, but her voice firm. "I know it's different for me because of all the time I've had to accept…things as they are. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that we stopped looking for a way to find you and Bonnie."

Something hot and fierce strikes through me suddenly and I find myself snapping,

"Bonnie deserved better. I get why you stopped looking for me. But Bonnie….you should have done more for her."

Elena looks slightly taken aback by my latent defense of her friend. I'm angry at her then. Angry that she would wonder why I'm defending Bonnie. I know it's not a rational anger. Elena can't know how my feelings towards Bonnie have shifted so dramatically because of the experience we shared. I shouldn't be pissed at Elena for not understanding why I now think Bonnie always deserved better from everything. Including me.

I am though. I am angry. I have been since yesterday, and now I know the real reason why.

"Bonnie is one of my best friends Damon. I love her. We all did. We looked for every way to get her back, but there was nothing we could do."

"Well clearly there was, because Bonnie and I _found it_." I say, not quite able to keep the edge out of my voice.

I'm seriously not even angry for myself. This is all about Bonnie. All the rage I've been feeling, but couldn't understand, it was about _Bonnie_. I'm not sure how to deal with that right now on top of everything else.

But Bonnie feels like my only ally in this new world we've both stepped back into. Like hell am I going to stand around and let people treat her like shit. That may have been fine before, when I only cared for Bonnie in a strangely abstract way. A way that was more about mutual dislike and respect than anything else.

Not now though. Not after what we've been through together. I didn't drag Bonnie back here bleeding and almost murdered by a psycho non-witch just so she could be turned into Mystic Falls' resident martyr doormat all over again.

Screw that noise. Things will be different this time around even if it kills me.

I really do not want to have it out with Elena right now. Not about us. What we were. What we could have been. It's all pointless anyway. Nothing we say right now can change the way things have worked out.

I also don't want to keep staring into the eyes of the woman I've been desperately in love with for years whilst all I can think about is Bonnie. It feels wrong somehow. I'm not even sure why, but it does, and that's enough for me to want out.

"That isn't fair. We did everything we could to get you both back. Nothing was simple or easy. For years, we all struggled. Losing you both was harder than anything we'd faced together before." Elena says, incredulous anger creeping into her own voice now.

I can tell if we keep going like this then we'll end up fighting and I'll say things I don't actually mean. There's still that awful, dark, part of me that want to keep arguing. That part of me wants this to end in a horrible fight. A fight that will end this, once and for all.

But it's a lucky day for my conscience, because I'm human and I have better control over my impulses. Barely. Because, like I said before, I'm still me.

"I don't want to do this with you right now Elena." Or ever.

Elena's jaw ticks with frustration, but she doesn't shout at me like I half expected her to. Instead she takes a few deep breathes and her shoulders slump in something like defeat. It's not a pleasant sight for me, but I'm not sure what else to do. There's nothing I can say that will make this any better than it is.

Elena crosses her arm, her posture rigid. But her eyes are still kind and understanding when she says,

"Fine. It might have been too soon for both of us. We can talk at a better time, maybe."

"Maybe." I say, because why not? It's not like we've never lied to each other before.

Although, both her 'maybe' and mine feels a lot like a door that has been closed and locked. I just have to be ready to throw away the key.

**Bonnie's P.O.V**

I find Damon where Elena told me she left him. At the cemetery.

But when I get there he isn't standing outside it anymore. Instead he's sitting in front of a grave. His expression is tight and touched with very real anguish. I don't see whose grave it is until I'm standing only a few feet away.

Elizabeth Forbes. Mother. Friend. Hero.

I knew Sheriff Forbes was dead, because Caroline told me last night. But it didn't feel real. Not until now. I'm looking at her headstone and suddenly it all feels _too_ real. Liz died and I wasn't here. I feel like I've failed in some way by not getting home sooner, even though I know that's ridiculous.

Damon doesn't look at me until I sit down on the grass next to him. His pale blue eyes are full of an emotion I can't quite put a name to. It seems to be edging towards sorrow though, so I reach over to touch his hand.

I'm slightly surprised when Damon locks our fingers together. His hand is warm and big and almost impossibly comforting to me right now. Something deep down inside me burns as we stare at each other, for whatever reason unwilling or unable to look away. Not yet.

"I didn't know she was dead." Damon says, finally. "I was just walking around here and I saw it."

'It', of course, being the pristine white headstone set before us with Liz's name on it.

Damon's eyes give away obvious clues that he's been crying. I can't remember ever seeing him do that. Not properly anyway. It looks wrong inside my head to picture Damon doing anything but smirking playfully or snarling in fury.

"Caroline told me." I say, because 'sorry' just isn't an adequate enough word. It never really is.

"Liz was my friend." Damon says, sounding almost tired, like the last few hours have exhausted him. Maybe emotionally, they have. I know the same is true for me at least.

"I know." I say.

I hate being here. It reminds me of my Grams. My father. All the people we lost and had to bury in the dirt beneath our feet, or burn to ashes seeping into the earth.

"Do you want to drive out of Mystic Falls, find a bar, and get drunk with me?" I say seriously. I'm not sure what makes me ask the question even though I know it's a bad idea for Damon to be a vampire right now. But for some odd reason I don't care.

I _don't care_ if leaving this town will end badly. I _don't care_ if it upsets my friends. I _don't care_ , in this one singular moment, if we never come back to this God-awful town again.

But I do care about Damon. I care that he's miserable, and I'm miserable, and I know that we need to do something or we'll both go completely insane.

Damon smiles at me, just a little bit, and I feel triumphant about that for some reason.

"Hell yes, Bon Bon, let's go."

I was meant to spend the day with Elena and Caroline, but even though it's selfish, I feel like what I'm doing with Damon is more important.

Damon gets in and out of the boarding house with some cars keys without getting caught, how, I have no idea. But I'm glad, because I do not want to have to explain to Caroline and Elena why I'd rather make a run for it with Damon, than spend time with them. I'm not sure I'd be able to explain to myself, let alone them.

I said that to Damon and he said he was offended that I should even need to explain why I would want to run away with him. I said he makes it sound like I'm running away with him for love. Damon said that I am running away with him for love. I said that was only true if he meant my love for alcohol and getting my magic back. Damon pouted. And it was not manly or endearing at all. I called him an idiot. He refused to start the car until I would admit that I love him. I told him I don't hate him quite as much as I should. Damon said that would do for now.

I retain my initial standpoint. He is an idiot.

"Do you think it'll work?" I ask when we're nearing the edge of Mystic Falls.

Damon shrugs one shoulder and says,

"If not then I still intend to find a bar. I can find out just how badass my human alcohol tolerance really is."

"That would definitely be ironic." I say blithely.

"What would be? Come on Sabrina, don't go all cryptic on me now." Damon swerves the car a little just to be annoying.

"You dying of alcohol poising after everything that's already happened. _That_ would be ironic."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. But I promise not to laugh at your funeral."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Bennett."

"You're right, I'm sorry. I take it back. I will most likely laugh my ass off if you of all people die by drinking too much."

Damon laughs, and it's actually one hundred percent genuine for once. So that makes me laugh too. I don't know if my laugh sounds genuine or not, but at least it's something.

I stop laughing abruptly when we pass the Mystic Falls welcoming sign and my whole body feels like its been lit on fire. I barely contain a scream. I swear I hear the echo of gun shots and Damon loses control of the car and shout out in pain. I can't see the blood because Damon is wearing a black t-shirt, but I can smell it. Just a bit. A whiff of iron tickling my nose. Maybe I've just become too used to being around blood.

The car keeps rolling forward, but luckily we don't skid too badly. That white hot burning sensation that set my nerve endings on fire has subsided and I immediately feel more connected to the world around me again. My magic is back. It thrums through me, almost like a welcome home singe of warmth. If ever there was such a thing.

Damon slams on the breaks, his eyes wide, and his body clearly full of painful adrenaline. I watch him warily, my chest heaving as my heart races a mile a minute. I'm breathing heavily and my hands are clenched into fists in reaction to the shock.

After a few moments of tension filled silence between us, Damon looks over at me and says,

"Well that was fun."

"Fun?" I say incredulously.

Damon arches a dark eyebrow at me,

"Ok, not fun. Different?"

"Batshit crazy more like. But 'different' will do I guess." I say, puffing out a somewhat relieved breathe.

Damon actually smirks then, and it's one of his more dangerous expressions. Blue eyes practically spark with mischief. He takes hold on the wheel again and turns to face the open road.

"Right then. Bar. Alcohol. Lets _do this_."

But still he doesn't start driving forwards again. It takes a moment for my brain to catch up with the situation, and then another moment for me to work out why we aren't moving.

I lean over and press the button for the automated roof. It peels back and reveals us to the world once more. I settle back into my seat and make a twirling motion with my hand. I say what Damon needs to hear,

"Drive on lunatic. First bottle of bourbon is on you."

It'll have to be, neither of us have any money. Good thing Damon is a vampire again, because we'll be relying on his compulsion if we want a drink. Actually...

"You're all vamped out again right?" I ask, just to confirm.

Damon looks at me and I'm more glad than I should be when he goes full on vamp face. Then he pulls back and winks at me. I roll my eyes. Damon laughs and revs the engine hard. I turn on the radio and switch it to a classic rock station. Damon presses his foot down with purpose and we drive away. We drive far away from Mystic Falls and all the problems that wait for us back there.

Damon and I share a smile that belongs only to us, and for the first time since we got out of that prison world, I think to myself...I'm home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shout out to-babekitt,DyeMyHairGalaxy1995,ValtheFanGal,Just-Waiting,coraxes,VarMar and the Guests who took the time to leave a comment-THANK YOU MY UNICORN BRETHREN!


	8. Shut up and give me the bourbon!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Bonnie's POV**

"You. Look. Sad." I say. Or maybe I shout. I can't tell either way because my head is spinning too much.

I poke Damon's nose every time I speak and he just lets me because he's too busy moping with his upper body resting pathetically on top of the bar. There's two almost empty bottles of high price bourbon set down between us.

Damon did the bulk of the drinking. One, because he's a vampire and therefore his alcohol tolerance dwarfs that of a human. Two, because even for a human my alcohol tolerance is akin to that of a mouse. Three glasses of proper liquor and I'm gone.

When we were in the prison world, Damon bugged me almost constantly about being a light weight. I kept telling him that I would rather be a light weight than a borderline alcoholic psycho vamp. Then Damon would pretend that I hurt his feelings and would 'ignore' me. That usually lasted all of an hour before it was back to him poking me with his snarky stick.

Don't. Even.

"I'm not sad," Damon half groan, half slurs, "I've never been so fucking happy, actually." He groans again, "This is my happy face," he lifts a hand to point at his decidedly miserable expression, "Guess that shows what you know about faces."

Well that didn't make any sense at all. Or did it? I really, honestly, couldn't tell you right now.

We drove for three hours before stopping at a crappy looking bar in the middle of a town that seems even smaller than Mystic Falls. And creepier too. The town is called 'Fells Church'. It might look picturesque in the day, but by the time Damon and I got here the sky had long since turned dark.

"You're being pathetic." I tell him, leaning over the bar to ruffle his hair. I have no idea why. Drunk Bonnie is apparently the type of person who ruffles other people's hair for no reason. Great. I'm liking these new sides of myself. Or not.

The bar, which I'm pretty sure is named 'Hope's Spell' or something equally as on the nose and ridiculous, is small, well worn, and mostly vacant. I think Damon chose it just to be a dick, and maybe to avoid having to be around many other people.

Damon growls something at me, but I can't make it out because his face is hidden in his crossed arms on the bar. Whatever it was I'm sure it wasn't nice or flattering, so I decide to forgo asking him to repeat it.

"This whole evening is turning out to be a lot sadder than I thought." I mutter, mostly to myself more than Damon.

I wasn't sure what I expected when we left Mystic Falls. Maybe that our problems would float away the further we got from our home town. Well, if I did think that, then I was wrong. Very wrong. Our problems seems have just followed us here.

I still feel shitty about all my friends having moved on without me. Damon is still heartbroken over Elena. Both of us together are a couple of losers right now. It's only slightly comforting that at least I'm not alone in this. I have Damon. And isn't that a scary thought all by itself.

No one to depend on but Damon effing Salvatore, a.k.a the most impulsively selfish vampire who ever lived and died. Oh yeah, I'm livin' the dream here folks.

The barman, who reminds me a lot of Matt with his blond hair, blue eyes, and all American boy good looks, comes over and gives me a look that clearly means 'what's a nice girl like you doing here with a drunk bastard'. I have no answer for him. I really don't.

"Hi there, sir." I say, lifting a hand and, for Gods sake, waving at him.

Matt 2.0 quirks a blond eyebrow at me,

"Um, did you just call me 'sir'?"

"What of it?" I ask, and wonder why I'm suddenly talking like a mid-century maiden.

"I'm, like, the same age as you." Matt 2.0 says.

I say,

"It really depends on what timeline you're using to deduct that conclusion." Ok, I really need to write myself note about drinking too much expensive bourbon whilst I'm feeling upset about my life. Clearly those two things together do not have a positive effect on me.

Matt 2.0 leans on the bar and asks,

"What are my timeline options?"

Since he's asked, and because I really don't give a shit about anything at the moment, I say,

"Well, there's the timeline where I was born in 1992 and then died, for the third time, when I was twenty-one. I went to a prison world for four months with this asshole," I jerk a thumb at Damon, who doesn't appear to be paying any attention to me or Matt 2.0. I continue, "But then there's the other timeline where when we got back from the prison world my friends told me it had been seventeen years since we'd died."

"That sounds pretty dramatic and awful." Matt 2.0 says, not even having the decency to sound shocked or perturbed by my confession, damn him.

"It _was_." I say defensively.

Damon suddenly pipes up, looking decidedly more sober than I thought he was,

"Bon bon, why are you talking to the human? I've told you before about encouraging them to engage in conversation. Unless you're going to let me eat him, then stop it."

And because I _am_ as drunk as I think I am, I slap Damon arm and whisper (but not actually whispering at all),

"Shut up Damon! He doesn't know that I'm a witch and you're a vampire." My gaze darts up towards Matt 2.0, who still appears pleasantly amused by the situation rather than confused or freaked out.

Matt 2.0 raises his hand just a little and says,

"Actually, I do know that you're a witch and he's a vampire."

Damon snorts and says snarkily,

"Well of course you do **_now_** , because Bon bon just blabbed about it."

"Nah, I knew before that." Matt 2.0 says with a half shrug.

I narrow my eyes at him,

"How?"

Matt 2.0 shrugs again and says,

"I've been around enough supernaturals to know how to spot one. Or two, in this case."

I don't think I like this guy.

I turn to Damon to say,

"You can eat him."

"I wouldn't do that." Matt says, sounding oddly casual about it, "My blood is pumped full of vervain. It'd be an unpleasant experience for you." Matt 2.0 add to Damon directly.

I point at him,

"I don't think I like you."

"Agreed." Damon says, banging his empty glass against the bar top, "But get me some more bourbon and I'll warm up to you real fast."

"I think you've _both_ had enough." Matt 2.0 says, eyeing the two already now empty bottles of bourbon.

Damon glowers at Matt 2.0 and says,

"You know I could still kill you without drinking your vervain blood, right?"

Matt 2.0 nods congenially,

"Oh, I know. I've met other vampires before, like I said."

"What other vampire?" I ask curiously.

"I'm still waiting for my bourbon." Damon says impatiently.

I reach over and wipe a hand down his face,

"Shhhh, I'm busy being nosy about Matt 2.0."

"Who?" Damon asks in confusion.

"Max Honeycutt." Matt 2.0 says, "My name is Max Honeycutt."

"How unfortunate for you," Damon says, and he taps the bar with his empty glass again insistently.

Matt 2.0, or Max, rolls his eyes, but goes obediently to get another bottle of bourbon. He brings the bottle over and places it next to Damon.

"Knock yourself out, dude."

Damon takes hold of the bottle, but gives Max a dirty look.

"'Dude'? Seriously? Go to so much hell that it isn't even funny, damn Captain America."

Max, instead of seeming insulted, just makes a pained expression, as if he's used to this kind of vocal abuse. For all I know, he could be.

"What vampires do you know?" I ask again, diverting Max's attention back to me.

"Well, two friends of mine are dating vampires at the moment. Plus, one of my friends is a witch." Max tells me.

"Huh," I say, "How is that for you?"

"Weird." Max says without pause. "But it's not like I can do much about it."

"What are the vampire boyfriends like?" I ask. I start twirling my fingers around the edge of my glass.

Damon is busy getting acquainted with his new best friend, an almost full bottle of bourbon. But not quite the good stuff this time. Obviously Max didn't want to waste the good bourbon on someone who is clearly already too drunk to care much either way.

Max makes a face. It's not exactly unpleasant, but it definitely isn't an elated expression either. He reminds me of Matt again with that look on his face. Silently disapproving. I think that's the best way to describe it.

"They're brothers actually. Italian. Annoyingly attractive. Dangerous. One of them is a self deprecating gentleman. The other is a powerful and damn arrogant about it. That's pretty much all you need to know."

"Do they have names?" I ask, raising an eyebrow curiously.

"I think I know them." Damon says suddenly, looking moderately surprised."

"Well they aren't you and Stefan," I says, "Which means I'm all out of annoying and attractive vampire brothers."

Damon smirks at me,

"I'll be sure to let the original brothers know that you don't think they're attractive enough for it to be annoying."

I wobble my hand from side to side,

"Meh, maybe mildly irritating. Except for Elijah, he was hot enough to be infuriating."

"Oh, well, you would pick the nice brother." Damon scoffs.

"I wouldn't call any of the originals 'nice' Damon. Especially to their face." I say with a short laugh.

I can't believe I even have it in me to joke about the originals after all they put us through. I blame the bourbon. And Damon. And Max, for some reason.

Damon smiles at me, seeming pleased about something. He leans closer to me and places his hand over mine. Our eyes lock and I feel something akin to warmth and happiness spread through my body. But then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the moment passes and we look away from each other again.

"What do they look like?" Damon asks Max narrowly.

Max seems surprised by the question, but he answers anyway,

"Tall. One with perpetuity tanned skin. The other pale as the moon. Black hair. One with grassy green eyes. The other with eyes as black as an insects."

"Holy shit!" Damon slaps the bar with his hand, "I do know them!"

Oh goodie.

"Friends? Enemies? Ex-lovers? Drinking buddies….oh who am I kidding. Enemies. Got to be. How much danger are we in if they see you?" I poke Damon's cheek.

"I could have friends! I am completely capable of maintaining good friendships with people." Damon snaps, sounding affronted.

"That is so untrue that I can't even fathom how you can say it with a straight face." I say with a snort, "You've had, like, _three_ friends in the history of ever. One, Tess, who you screwed over to help us kill the originals. Two, Enzo, who you also screwed over by leaving him to be burned alive. Three, me, and…well, do I even need to go into all of the things you've done to me? No. Good." I shake my head at Damon, "You are not a good friend, Damon Salvatore. I'm sorry, but that's just a fact. The only people who would ever be friends with you are idiots."

"But you're my friend." Damon argues, pouting just a little.

"And I'm an idiot." I say amiably.

"You actually know Damien and Soren Santoro?" Max asks, eyes going a bit wide, like he's realising he's made a mistake.

He probably has. I've learned that it's never a good thing when Damon knows someone from his past.

Damon doesn't seem to have many good memories. Exciting and adventurous memories, sure, but not genuinely happy ones where he felt good and content. I suppose that's what happens when you die, lose the person you thought was the love of your life, become a vampire against your will, and then spend the next one hundred forty five years pining after something that never actually existed in the first place, only to find love again with a woman who was already taken by his brother. Again. And then to lose the love and relationship he'd fought so hard for, simply by chance.

I'd say Damon's life was tragic if it weren't for the fact that he's also a psychotic killer. And my best friend.

I really am screwed.

**Damon's POV**

"Yeah, I know them…." I say to…Mark?

"You're trying to remember his name aren't you?" Bonnie says tiredly, giving me a knowing look. That woman can read me so easily. It's disconcerting. And weirdly comforting at the same time. God damn conflicting emotions. They're a pain in my ass, and always have been.

I'd really love to only ever feel one emotion at a time. I think that should be quite enough for anyone to deal with. Let alone this mishmash of confusing feelings that fly all over the place inside me.

I pull a blank face at Bonnie, who rolls her eyes and says,

"Max. His name is _Max_."

Not Mark then. I congratulate myself for getting even that close with my guess.

"Hello Mark," I say brightly, waving at the bartender with my fingers.

Max gives me an incredulous look,

"Jesus, it's like you're the lost Santoro brother."

"Nope," Bonnie says good-naturedly, "He's a Salvatore brother." She leans in closer to Max and mock whispers, "Trust me, that's much worse."

"Ignore her," I say, scowling at an amused looking Bonnie, "She's a mean drunk."

Bonnie promptly giggles and almost falls off of her stool. And that should not be cute at all. It should be stupid and irritating. Maybe I'm just too tired to tell the difference.

Max goes to grab Bonnie so she won't fall. I barely hold in the snarl I want to send his way. But I do glare at him, putting as much threat into my eyes as possible. Max frowns, but he doesn't touch Bonnie. Good little human.

I wrap an arm around Bonnie's waist and pull her back up onto her seat properly. She lets her head fall back against my shoulder and my grip on her tightens instinctively.

Look, I just don't want some stranger touching Bonnie. Especially when she's vulnerable. What kind of best friend would I be if I let that happen? Exactly, a shitty one. Bonnie's had enough of her friends treating her badly in her life. I don't want to be like the others. I don't want to take Bonnie Bennett for granted. Ever.

Bonnie deserves better. And even if it means putting my own self-pitying shit on hold, I'll do whatever it takes to help her.

Max? Mark? Maxko? Marky Max? Damn, I forgot again. But whatever, the blond kid looks at his watch and says to me,

"Do you two have anywhere to go tonight? Because I'm closing up now."

Anywhere to go? Well, Bonnie and I didn't exactly get that far in our 'escape' plan. But now I realise that we probably should have thought all this through a bit more carefully. For one, everyone back home is probably having a shit fit about us being missing. Not that I really give a fuck about that.

But for another, I have nowhere to go, and Bonnie needs to get some sleep. She's practically already snoring softly against my jacket. I catch sight of the three bottles of bourbon. I might need to give her some water too to flush out some of that alcohol. And a biscuit or two to soak it up. She'll still feel like hell in the morning….or the afternoon more likely by this point, but it'll be better than it could be.

First though, I need to find a place.

"Any chance I can compel you into letting us stay at your place?" I say whimsically to…yeah, I'm sticking with 'blond kid'.

"Well, I live upstairs. But you don't need to compel me. Just promise no killing anyone inside my bar, including me, and you can stay in my spare room tonight if you want."

"Why are you being nice?" I ask blond kid suspiciously.

Blond kid gives me a dry look and says,

"I'm doing this for the girl," he indicates at Bonnie, who has now definitely passed out. "She seems like a good person who's gone through some shit and needs help."

Blond kid might be right about that. But damn him if he thinks I'm gonna say so.

"Ah, so you're the hero type, huh? Should have guessed." I say. And I really should have. He's got small town wonder boy written all over him. Just like Matt Donavan.

Fuck, do I ever dislike the crap out of people like Matt Donovan. Self-righteous little assholes who think it's their job to fix a world that was broken long before any of us were born.

Well now I'm sounding like a hipster college student who's studying bad poetry. Brilliant. Next I'll be talking about how beautiful and mysterious a plastic bag looks when the wind blows it down the street.

"Are you always this much of a dick?" Blond kid asks, and he actually makes the question sound reasonable.

"Yes." I say offhandedly, "Now shut up and take me to a bed."

Blond kid just grins.

I think I'll kill him tomorrow.

Yeah, I definitely think I will.

….

"I feel terrible." Bonnie moans from her side of the bed.

"You look terrible too." I say, looking down at her from my place standing in the door way.

Bonnie flips me off and I laugh.

"Go. Away." Bonnie croaks at me.

"No, I'm afraid it's time for little Bon bon to get up. I've made you breakfast. Your new boyfriend said I could use his kitchen."

Bonnie actually sits up in bed then, her dark hair sticking up all over the place, and her eyes bleary and unfocused. She raises a finger,

"One, he's not my boyfriend. Two, what time is it? Three, did you compel him to let us up here last night?"

I smirk at her openly,

"One, he totally is your boyfriend, and I don't think you're really in a position to be picky about such things." She throws a pillow at me, which I dodge. "Two, it's almost twelve o' clock, so your lazy witchy ass needs to get out of bed and entertain me, because I've fed already and now I'm bored. Three, I didn't even need to compel him to let us sleep up here, or to let me use his kitchen to make you breakfast/lunch."

I refuse to call it 'brunch' on the grounds that that's a stupid fucking word that I hate with the burning power of a thousand suns.

Bonnie seems to think about all that for a long moment. Then she looks straight at me, accusation in her eyes,

"I swear, if you've made me pancakes, I will fucking _end you_ Salvatore."

I raise my eyebrows innocently and say,

"You'll have to come and find out."

Bonnie narrows her eyes and grumbles something under her breathe. But she does get up, but instead of leaving the room, she goes into the on suite bathroom. A minute later I hear the sounds of a shower.

It was so weird this morning. I woke up, having slept next to Bonnie in Blond kid's spare bedroom. Luckily she didn't even throw up once during the night, which was borderline impressive considering how much she drank.

Blond kid's place is nice. Mostly rustic, but with touches here and there of something more modern. His décor is all soft blue walls and wooden floors. It's also surprisingly bigger than it looked from the outside.

I got up this morning and found Blond kid sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal. That made me think of Gabriel. My nephew. I feel a pang of something painful hit me in the chest. The memory of Tiny's blue eyes widening in delight when he saw me yesterday morning filled my mind.

Blond kid didn't say anything much to me. He was texting someone. I didn't really feel like talking, so that suited me fine.

"You can both stay here however long you want. I gotta go and meet my friends. Make your girl some breakfast or whatever." Blond kid said.

"I promise not to steal anything." I replied too sweetly. Then what he'd said actually registered inside my head, and I glared at him. "And Bonnie is not ' _my girl'_."

Mostly because we're not living inside a 80s romance movie.

Blond kid had just looked at me for a really long time, as if trying to figure something out. It made me want to kill him. And I would have, if I thought Bonnie wouldn't be pissed about me offing her new friend. Usually that wouldn't be enough to stop me, but after everything she's been through, I don't want to make things any worse for Bonnie.

So I resisted the urge to kill, and Blond kid just said, whilst still _staring_ at me,

"Alright, Damon. If you say so."

Then he got up and left.

I think that kid might be my new nemesis.

I go and wait for Bonnie at the kitchen table and start reading Blond kid's copy of 'A Tale of two cities' that he left on the table.

When Bonnie comes out she's dressed back in her clothes from the day before. But she looks refreshed, if a little tired. And definitely hung over.

I pour Bonnie some coffee and kick out a seat for her to sit down at the table. Bonnie falls into the seat with a groan and presses her hands against her face, resting her elbows on the table in front of her.

I push over a plate with the eggs and bacon sandwich on it that I made for her in Blond kid's, very tidy and very clean, kitchen.

Bonnie picks up the coffee mug and takes a few sips. Her eyes landing on me from over the rim.

"You said you fed already?" Bonnie asks. There's no recrimination in her voice. She doesn't sound like she's expecting that I killed someone. It's just a simple confirmation question.

"Yeah, went out for half an hour. Snatch, eat, erase. Nothing crazy." I say.

"No epic killing spree for you then?" Bonnie says, arching an eyebrow, "How boring of you." She teases.

That gets a smile out of me. If nothing else, my witch can mock me like no one else. Bonnie returns my smile with a small, if weary, grin of her own.

Bonnie and I sit in companionable quiet as Bonnie eats and I read. She asks me a few things about the book, since she read it in Lit class last year. But apart from that, we don't say much of anything to each other.

And it's not because things are awkward. We perfected the art of being alone together when we were in the prison world. We fought a lot, and argued pretty constantly about nothing important.

But, the thing is, it's almost inevitable that if you spend that much time alone with someone you'll eventually become comfortable with them. Whether you like it or not.

It helps that Bonnie isn't the worst company either.

I remember once when Bonnie and I were arguing during the first two months of our self-imposed imprisonment, Bonnie asked me why I hadn't just killed her already. I didn't have an answer for her at first. But then I thought back on the last two months we'd spent together and I said 'you aren't the worst company in the world Bonnie'.

It's only now when I'm thinking about it again that I realise what I said to Bonnie echoes something I once said to Elena. When Elena first found out about Katherine, she got into that car accident, and I practically kidnapped her. We drove across the country together and it was the first time I started seeing Elena as more than just a reflection of Katherine. It was a real turning point in our relationship.

Whilst we were in that prison world, I started to see Bonnie as more than just my girlfriend's best friend, and a useful ally. I realised that she is an incredible person. A person I could really care about.

In the beginning, Elena was just a connection to Katherine. In the beginning, Bonnie was just a connection to Elena. I don't know if my subconscious connected those dots without me knowing, or what. But it forces me to think about my relationship with both Elena and Bonnie, in the past _and_ in the present.

I really wish I could just shut off my brain. But that would lead to shutting off other things, like my emotions. And I've already decided that I can't let that happen. Not this time. I have to be stronger, for both myself and for Bonnie.

And maybe for Stefan too. I missed that broody bastard more than I thought I would.

Bonnie notices me watching her, and she opens her mouth to say something. Probably to tell me to stop staring at her like a creeper. But before she can get a word out, there's a loud banging sound. I must have been concentrating too much on Bonnie to hear anyone coming.

My muscles tense and coil, ready for a fight I know I'll win. The confidence of a vampire rarely wavers.

But it becomes clear a moment later that there is unlikely to be a threat.

Two girls; One with pale blond hair and the oddest mix of blue and violet eyes, and the other with loose red curls and big doe eyes.

They comes rushing in, the blond girl is striding at a leisurely pace, whereas the red headed girl is bouncing like a mad ping pong ball of energy.

Blond kid follows after them.

I share a look with Bonnie. She looks just as bewildered as I feel.

"Hey, Bonnie, Damon," Blond kid says casually, throwing himself down onto the rather large blue sofa. He nods towards the new girls, "These are the friends I was telling you about. Erin Garrett and Blaire McCullough."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shout out to-JustStockton and Guests who took the time to review-THANK MY UNICORN BRETHREN!
> 
> A/N-These new characters I'm throwing in are 'kind of' OC's but also kind of not. Anyone whose also read the books should get it. I'm basically playing with an inside joke to myself ;) x
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading and please comment! xxx


	9. Flannel And Bromances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Bonnie's P.O.V**

I look over at Damon and see an expression on his face that I know all too well. It's his ' _I'm going to be a big bag of dicks because strangers make me uncomfortable'_ face. He pulls it out more often than not when he feels his contentment has been violated by the existence of other people. I can only hope his pissy mood won't lead to random acts of violence like it usually does.

Although, then again, if he can deal with the whole Elena situation without going on a murder spree, then hopefully he'll be able to handle a couple of pretty girls staring at him. Knowing Damon he might even enjoy it.

Of course you can never be totally sure with Damon. When we were in the prison world, Damon told me about times when he's allowed people to escape his grasp, only to change his mind at the last second and kill them anyway. It disturbed me to think of Damon as being so heartless and cruel, which is ridiculous considering the fact that I've seen him in action on more than one occasion.

It can be hard though, when you're faced with someone's humanity, to see the cracks that lay just beneath. I know that Damon is a monster. I know he's killed people for fun. I know he's likely going to continue to kill people no matter what else happens in our lives. Damon Salvatore is a monster. A creature of the darkest magic.

But he's also my best friend.

There is so much contradiction in that. It makes my head spin even to think of all the things I'm willing to put aside just to allow myself to care for him. I can't imagine what Elena would have had to put aside to actually _love_ him.

I imagine falling in love with Damon Salvatore is like falling in love with a storm. Dark clouds signal danger, but spread throughout the sky, consuming every fracture of light. Thunder that encompasses fear, a sensation that rides along your nerve endings and sparks a fire in your soul. Lightning strikes passion into the very depths of your heart, allowing you to see hope in the dark. It vibrates through your soul and leaves a permanent scorch mark there.

Being loved by a storm. An impossible thing to escape, to find safety from. Loving a storm. A challenge never to be taken up by the faint of heart.

I think I'd rather get struck by real lightning than fall in love with a man like Damon. If there is such a thing as a man **_like_** Damon. I have a sneaking suspicion that I could travel the entirety of the world and never find one quite like him. It's an unsettling thought all by itself.

I'm not sure if it would be easier to love a man like Stefan. Elena chose him once. In fact she chose him twice. But then the third chance came and she made a wholly altered choice. I always wondered what made the difference. Caroline thought, and pronounced whenever I would listen, that it was the sire bond that changed Elena so completely.

My opinion wasn't exactly asked for, and no one can get a word in with both Caroline and Elena around most of the time, so I never felt much need to comment.

Now though, I think about what I would have said if I'd had the chance. Or what I would have asked my best friend.

It's possible that becoming a vampire allowed Elena to let go of certain inhibitions that kept her from choosing Damon in the first place. Although that seems unfair to Stefan. People often say that he is the 'good' brother. But I don't think I see it that way. Not anymore. Maybe not even before I had the chance to really _know_ Damon.

I'm not sure why all these thoughts are bombarding me lately, or at least since we got back from the prison world. I don't know why any of it matters to me. But it does. In some strange, abstract way, it really does seem to matter.

I blame Damon.

"Why are you glaring at me?" Damon asks, his attention is divided between me and the random people we don't know who are still staring at us.

I continue to glare at Damon. I don't even give a flying dohnut fuck. He deserves to be glared at by _someone_ God damn it.

"I hate you. And your face." I growl at him.

Damon's expression becomes playfully amused, which makes me want to kick him somewhere men do not like being kicked. Well, I mean women don't particularly 'like' it either, but that's not the point.

"Because those two things are separate entities now?" He drawls all annoying and shit.

"Shut up." My comebacks are clearly getting more and more awesome as time goes on. Well they do say with age comes experience and all that stuff.

"Myself or my face?" Damon asks, clearly enjoying whatever weird mini explosion of unfounded anger I'm experiencing.

"Both." I say, picking up a brown suger cube from a pot on the table and throwing it at him. "Both need a serious case of shut up disease."

Damon deflects the brown sugar cube, but doesn't quite manage to escape the second white sugar cube that I aim at his face. Ha! I'm a freakin' sugar ninja.

I think I might still be a bit drunk from last night. That ain't good. It definitely doesn't bode well for the conversation that is probably about to happen between me, Damon and our new friends. Or future enemies, depending on how insufferable Damon is planning, or probably not even planning since his dickishness appears to be a natural thing, on being.

"What is it with you and throwing things at me today?" Damon grouses, throwing me mock hateful look.

I have no idea how to respond to that, so I don't.

"Can you two go five seconds without bickering?" Max asks, looking over at us with a frown. There's no heat behind it though.

Damon turns his smirking face towards Max and says,

"No. We can't. It was part of our contract when we decided to become frenemies." Damon's smirk turns sardonic, "Don't be so judgy Matt."

"His name is Max." I say needlessly.

Damon waves a hand,

"Ah, they're both blond. Male. And pathetically human. I can't be expected to differentiate between the two. He should feel lucky I don't just call him 'blond kid' and be done with it."

"Wow," the blond girl says, Erin was it? "You were right, Maxy, he's sounds just like Damien."

Erin is, in one word, gorgeous. Almost impossibly so. She looks like an angel, all perfectly flawless skin and shiny blond hair and beautiful powder blue eyes. Stick a pair of wings on her and she'd look otherworldly in the extreme.

Her voice is pure liquid gold too, and I can't help but think that if this girl ever met a young version of Caroline then they would hate each other. Caroline was never very good at handling jealousy, especially with other girls. Elena in particular used to rub Caroline the wrong way almost constantly. For someone as competitive as Caroline, Elena was always her opponent, even in games that Elena had no idea she was a part of.

In some ways I think Caroline becoming a vampire was the best thing that could have happened to her. I didn't think so at the time of course, in fact I was disgusted by the very thought of my best friend being one of the monsters I'd been charged with protecting my town from. But with time, we found our way back to each other. Some friendships are like that.

I can only hope that one day, my friends and I will find our way back to each other yet again.

I'd like to think we've been through worse, but…..I'm not sure if that's true. Because even though all those other times we lost each other were violent and painful, we never had the chance to move on from our friendships before. We found each other in a dark room because we were both still looking. In this case my friends not only stopped looking, they turned on the damn light, saw that I wasn't there, and left the room altogether.

Now the door to that room is locked and another door on the other side of the room has opened to reveal the possibility of a new life. Although it won't ever be completely new, because Damon is always there in that room too. He was left behind just as much as I was. But it's different for Damon because Stefan is his brother. Their relationship has survived many things over the years and I have no doubt that Damon will find a way to be a part of his brother's life again. From what I know about their history, despite the strain, neither of them could ever stay away from each other for that long.

I wish I could tell Damon that, but I know he doesn't want to hear it. Not now. Maybe one day. I'll have to make sure I'm there with him to be able to say it.

Damon's attention seems to become sharper when Erin mentions Damien. His eyes become slightly narrowed. Not dangerously so, but enough for me to recognise the significance of it. Damon catches my curious glance and says with fake nonchalance,

"Damien taught me some tricks when we….met."

I don't like the edge to his voice. I don't like it at all.

"Max said you and Damien have met before." The little redheaded girl, Blaire?, says. Her voice is bright and bubbly and full of barely leashed enthusiasm.

Damon nods imperceptibly at Blaire, his gaze softening instantly. The look he's giving her is almost…fond. But vaguely so. I wonder why his reaction is so immediate. Maybe it's because Blaire is so small and delicate looking, like a baby bird. Hell, even I kind of want to wrap her up in a blanket and keep her safe from the world. Damon isn't usually one for having a hero complex though. If anything he usually has a asshole complex.

"Yeah, I know Damien." Damon says to Blaire.

"And Soren too, yes?" Erin asks expectantly, her smirk is cat-like.

Damon's eyes become more guarded when he looks at Erin and I get the strangest sense that it's because she reminds him of someone else.

"I don't think that meeting me was an experience Soren is likely to forget." Damon says, but his tone is flat. I can't get a read on him when he gets all closed off and tense.

Damon doesn't do well with tense. It usually means he's about to lash out in some way. Often a violent or dick-like way. Since I don't particularly feel like dealing with any dead bodies today, and it is a true testament to mine and Damon's friendship that I can even have that thought, I reach over to place my hand on Damon's arm.

Damon jerks ever so slightly, more out of surprise than anything, but after that he calms down. I can quite literally feel the tension drain out of him muscle by muscle. Max appears to clock the movement, but he just raises an inquisitive eyebrow at me and doesn't say anything about it. Erin and Blaire seem to be too busy having a silent conversation with each other.

Erin finally seems to come to come kind of decision, because she nods once at Blaire and then comes to sit down at the kitchen table. Blaire looks a little bit exasperated by her friend, but just goes to sit down next to Max on the sofa.

"So, you both died, right?" Erin says, quite casually, as if she's asking us about the weather.

Damon's gaze flickers between me and Max. He says wryly,

"You just _had_ to tell the blondie bartender all our secrets, didn't you? That's it, new rule, no more bourbon for Bon Bon. Ever."

I barely resist the urge to roll my eyes and instead snap back,

"Go fall on a branch fang boy."

Damon just tips his head back and laughs.

I really wish there was a way for me to assassinate my best friend and still maintain the moral high ground.

"Yeah. We died." I say to Erin, deciding to ignore Damon. If that's even possible by this point. "Max told you what I…um…." Drunknely ranted. Meh.

"Max didn't need to tell us anything. We would have known anyway." Blaire pipes up from the sofa, still sounding positively cheerful. She looks like the kind of girl who smells naturally of bubble gum. I bet even her cry face is cutsey. She's like one of those anime girls whose eyes sparkle when they cry.

"What do you mean?" I ask, confused and a little bit freaked out.

Blaire grins and explains kindly,

"Fells Church is…kind of a special town."

"What kind of special?" Damon asks suspiciously. He inches ever so slightly closer to me.

Erin takes up the explanation then with a sigh,

"Fells church is hidden by a unique kind of magic. Our town has been touched by death itself, which means only people have died and been brought back to life somehow can find it."

"Like vampires?" I ask curiously. Touched by death? No wonder this town gave me the creeps.

Erin shakes her head and smiles prettily,

"Not exactly. Technically people who have become vampires haven't died. At least not fully. To find Fells Church you need to have died, full on died, and then be brought back to life."

"Are you saying this town is full of ex-ghosts?" Damon says a little bit incredulously.

"Pretty much." Max says with a half shrug.

"And I thought our town was weird." I mutter dispassionately.

"Only when you're there." Damon says, almost instinctively.

"Can you turn off the part of your brain that is a massive dick for, like, a minute?" I narrow my eyes at Damon.

"All I heard in that sentence was 'massive dick'." Damon says, smirking at me again.

"You're _impossible_." I say, slapping at his hand when he tries to touch my leg.

Damon doesn't look chastised at all damn him.

"I really can't wait to see you and Damien play together in action." Erin says, clear laughter in her bright eyes.

"Play together in action?" I say with a snort, "Don't tell me you and Damien were in some kind of vampire rock band."

"They called us the 'Fanged heartstealers'." Damon says teasingly, "See, that's funny because we actually used to _steal heart_ s together."

I press my lips together hard enough that it hurts to stop myself from smiling at all, even though Damon's grin in earth shatteringly genuine. I feel immensely guilty for wanting to laugh at a joke that isn't even a joke at all, because Damon literally has ripped hearts out of people. I've seen him do it. I try to banish those thoughts from my mind though. It won't do any good to dwell on them.

"Oh yeah, hilarious." I say dryly.

Damon's smile falters ever so slightly, as if he can read my thoughts. His eyes become cooler. Ice blue, tinged with frosted grey.

Before getting to know Damon properly in the prison world, I had no idea how easy it was to hurt him. Emotionally I mean. Even though he hides it better than his brother, Damon is still very much an emotive kind of person. He reacts to his emotions strongly, even the ones he isn't very aware of all the time. It makes him unpredictable and seemingly reckless.

"Are two planning on sticking around town long?" Blaire asks hopefully.

Damon and I exchange another look. What are we planning on doing? Staying in Fells Church? Going back to Mystic Falls? Setting off in another completely random direction? For the first time that I can remember, I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life.

Before, things seemed simple enough. All the supernatural stuff aside I mean. I would graduate high school and go to college with my friends. I would major in something I enjoyed, graduate from college, and pursue a career I felt passionate about. I would meet a really great guy, fall in love, and build a life with that person. And all the while my friends would be at my side, and I would be at theirs.

I knew what I wanted in the abstract, if not the exact details. I had goals. Things I desired. Things I imagined. Things I dreamt and yearned for. I had people I could depend on and trust and fight for and protect.

But now...nothing is certain.

And I'm angry about it. I'm angry about a lot of things. I'm angry that my life will never be what I envisioned. Because I missed it. I missed my shot. Everything is different now and it will always be different no matter what decisions I make.

I don't know where I fit anymore.

But I'm still a Bennett witch. I have my magic. So at least there's that.

Damon answers for both of us.

"We'll stay until something happens to drag us away. We have a creepy-ass town of our own you know." Damon says.

"Really?" Blaire asks, her eyes widening comically. "Fells Church is pretty crazy. Loads of stuff has happened here. What's your town like?"

"Tell us about your creepy town. Bet ours is worse." Eric says with a coy smile.

"You ever heard of a place called _Mystic Falls_?" Damon asks archly.

"Here come the horror stories." Max says, rolling his eyes.

I keep a small smile to myself. Yeah, that's my life, one long and tedious American horror story.

**Damon's P.O.V**

"I still can't believe we escaped Mystic Falls only to drive straight into another supernaturally infested town." Bonnie says, her nose scrunching up.

I'm with my witch on this one. What are the odds of me and Bon bon leaving one bat-shit insane town just to end up in the apparent town of death and doom? It's like the universe is playing one big, fucked up, joke on us.

Actually, ever since we got back from the prison world I've had the same feeling of unreality. It's like there's a presence pushing us in certain directions, leading us towards….something. If I believed in fate, which I _don't_ , then I'd say Bonnie and I were meant to be here. There are too many coincidences. I hate to think that way because it always causes an uneasy pain to curl up inside me.

I fought avidly against fate when I was with Elena. It seemed like the universe wanted Elena and my brother to be together, no matter what. Of course it wasn't really the universe pushing them together. It was magic. And if I've learnt anything since becoming a vampire, it's that magic can be a tricky son of a bitch even at the best of times.

Truthfully, part of me has distrusted magic since I found out it exists. That's probably why I had such an adverse reaction to Bonnie when we first met. My father taught me that magic was evil and dangerous and sinful. I spent my entire life fighting back against the iron clad restraints my father had raised me with.

But although another part of me found magic exciting, and even enthralling at times, when Katherine introduced me to its darker side, there was still a voice inside my head that told me it was wrong. Depraved. Immoral.

I would never admit it out loud, but when you are raised to believe something, no matter how hard you fight it, you will always carry that lesson with you.

When I came to Mystic Falls, I couldn't trust magic completely. It just wasn't in me to do so. I didn't mind using it to pursue my own goals, because there wasn't really much of a choice. But over the years I came to trust one source of magic. Bonnie. She earned that trust by consistently using her magic to save the people I cared about, and sometimes, _me_.

I can't exactly explain why that matters to me so much. Having the ability to trust at least one witch, one beacon of magic, completely and without hesitation. Maybe it's because, as a vampire, I am a creature of impure dark magic. Not trusting magic meant not trusting at least part of myself. I suppose trusting Bonnie allows me to be more at peace with what I am in some strange way that I didn't even realise was a problem before.

Not that I hated being a vampire. I loved it most of the time. I revelled in it as abundantly as I could. There wasn't much else I could do unless I wanted either to die, or to mope forever about something I could not change.

Of course my brother always fluxed between brooding about being a vampire and completely throwing himself over the deep end. There was never any middle ground with Stefan. Not until those last few years in Mystic Falls anyway.

I can't stop myself from thinking about Stefan. He's in the back of my mind almost constantly. It's maddening. Even when I'm not around him he still finds a way to infect my brain with his presence. Sometimes I wish I could go back to just hating him. Hate would be a lot easier to place than this constant aching awareness that I care about my little brother.

It hasn't been this bad since he was a kid. Before Katherine. Before we became vampires. Before either of us knew what kind of men we would one day be.

Bonnie and I walk through the cobbled streets of Fells Church, alone, after getting away from our new Matt, the beautiful blond girl, and little red. They asked us questions about Mystic Falls, and in turn Bonnie and I wanted to know about Fells Church. It turns out both of our towns are about as bad as each other on the weirdo-meter.

I carefully avoided questions about the Italian vampire brothers. It's not that I think they'll necessarily be a problem. Despite what Bonnie might think, Damien and I didn't leave things on a bad note. I am capable of having acquaintances who don't hate me or without making them my enemy.

Damien wasn't so much a friend as he was a drinking buddy. He made it clear from the start that making friends has never been something he cared about, or wanted. Not me specifically, but just in general. We did talk though, and even I can admit that we had a lot more in common than either of us first thought.

We bitched about our annoyingly broody younger brothers, our violent fathers, our love lives, or more specifically the bad decision we made as young men to fall in love with the vampire women who changed us.

It wasn't like I usually went around spilling my entire pathetic life story to random people. But even I can admit that there was something about Damien I connected to. I felt a sort of…kindship with him, as if we'd both lived our lives on parallel roads running alongside each other, but were separated by a thick wall of twisted branches.

I tell Bonnie this when she asks about Damien, apprehension in both our voices. Topics about my past are always a bit tricky with Bonnie. I'm never sure what will set her off. There are some things she lets go of easier than others.

I remember her face, the way she looked at me when Kai, the bastard, told her about what I did to Zach. What I took from him.

I meant what I said to Bonnie, it really was a relief when I finally got to kill Zach. I couldn't even look at him without remembering the guilt. Unlike Stefan I don't wear my guilt like flimsy armour. I keep my guilt tucked away inside a box and only take it out when I choose to.

Bonnie hasn't brought up Zach or anything else she found out about that day. I'm glad for that, because I honestly don't know what the hell I'd say if she did want to discuss it. Telling her I do bad shit for no reason when I'm bored or upset probably wouldn't cut it this time.

Bonnie expects more from me now. Just like Elena did when we became friends.

But it's different with Bonnie than it was with Elena. I'm not the same person I was then, and Bonnie knows me better than Elena did all those years ago. Bonnie has seen the deep, dark, holes that shred my soul like razor blades. She knows what I've done, and she knows most of the why of it too.

"So you had a total bromance with this Damien guy, is that what you're telling me?" Bonnie smirks at me, all teasing and suggestive eyebrows.

"I did not have a 'bromance' with Damien. I do not have _bromances._ " I say firmly, giving Bonnie a withering glare.

Bonnie makes a fist, brings it to her mouth and coughs against it,

" _Enzo_." Cough cough. " _Alaric_." Cough cough.

It's dark out now, the stars bright and glaring down at us from a fathomless black sky. The streets of Fells Church are quietly vacant. During the day, Bonnie insisted that if we were going to be sticking around, then we would need clothes because she did not want to wear flannel for one more effing day God damn it.

There were some small local clothes shops in the centre of town that Bonnie raided for a few dresses and pairs of jeans and t-shirts. Even some different shoes. Bonnie forced me to get some stuff for myself as well because she didn't want to look at me wearing flannel either.

We made a pact of no more flannel and no more pancakes and no more cross words for the rest of our lives.

Bonnie changed as soon as she could. Now she's wandering around in a short purple dress, a grey leather jacket and some black ankle boots. She looks happier than I've seen her since we arrived back home. It made me feel better to see her so genuinely pleased about something. Bonnie is a beautiful girl, made even more so when she smiles.

Well, Bonnie's beautiful at any time, especially when she's pissed off. Usually at me. I think that's part of the reason why I argue with her so much, so that she'll get that powerful heated glint in her eye that is undeniably sexy on any woman. But Bonnie actually has the power to back it up, which just makes it hotter.

Strong and passionate women have always been my weak point.

I sling an arm around Bonnie's shoulders and pull her against me. Bonnie lets me with a roll of her eyes in my direction. I smirk at her and say,

"Um, first of all, my love for Ric was _real_ and _powerful_ , don't downgrade our very special relationship to 'bromance' status, thank you Bon bon."

Bonnie snorts out a laugh and says,

"Yep, it was clearly a love story for the ages. We all thought so. What about Enzo?"

I blow out a breathe and shake my head,

"Nah, Enzo was just a meaningless fling."

"I don't think five years counts as a fling." Bonnie muses.

"It does when you're immortal." I reply easily.

"Fair point." Bonnie says. She elbows my side and adds, "Did you know Matt is married to Luke?"

My eyes widen slightly,

"Really? All American got himself some male witchy ass. Good for him."

Bonnie slaps at my chest and says thoughtfully,

"Don't start. I was kinda surprised when Caroline told me. I never picked up a vibe from Matt. It was always girls with him."

"Yeah, well, he's better off falling in love with a man anyway," I say in amusement, "He had shit luck with women."

Bonnie presses her lips together in a way that I know means she's trying not to laugh. She does that when I make jokes that she thinks are inappropriate but that she finds funny anyway. At some point I'll corrupt her so much that she won't even notice. That's one of my new life goals.

Since my last life goal was 'get back home to Elena', I figure I need a completely different one to offset the sort of failure of my last one.

Bonnie knows I'm right about Matt anyway. His first girlfriend dumped him for, let's be honest, being too nice. His second girlfriend went off with his best friend. His next girlfriend was a blond psycho original vampire. And then he went and had a thing with Katherine's abandoned spawn of a daughter. All in all, Matt is probably better off with a guy. Even if it is the blond witch who caused my permanent death in the first place.

I could kill him, but Bonnie probably wouldn't like it. Plus I'd have to do it as a human, something I haven't done since the Civil war.

"I'm pretty sure Matt didn't start a relationship with a man just because his previous relationships with women ended badly." Bonnie chastises me.

"Well I'm not saying that was the actual thought process behind it," I say, "But I certainly wouldn't fault him if it was. Women are a pain in the ass."

Bonnie punches my shoulder. I barely feel it, but I throw myself to the side anyway and pull Bonnie along with me. I 'fall' down onto the deserted cobbled road, making sure Bonnie hits me instead of the ground so she won't be hurt.

When Bonnie lands on me with a thud I start laughing. Bonnie curses at me and struggles to try and get up off the ground. I keep hold of her though until she stops struggling and instead gives me a daggering glare.

"You think you're so funny." Bonnie growls at me.

"I _am_ funny. And it was your own fault for hitting me. Violent behaviour has consequences Bon bon." I say, maybe enjoying myself a bit too much when Bonnie glares at me even harder.

"You're an ass who deserves to be hit. Constantly. With heavy things. Spiky heavy things. Tipped with poison." Bonnie says in frustration.

Bonnie wriggles into a more comfortable position on top of me and moves up so our faces are inches apart.

Neither of us realise until it's too late that our bodies are perfectly aligned and pressed together tightly, every bit of Bonnie touching me all over.

Bonnie and I stare at each other in silence for a long time. I can feel Bonnie's warm breathe on my face as she lets out little pants of air. Her smaller body fits against mine, the contours of our bodies matching up so well that it's ridiculously comfortable to have Bonnie exactly where she is.

I feel fire lick up my spine from the heat of Bonnie's touch, and a curl of pure **_want_** unfurls inside my stomach with an aching hunger that surprises the hell out of me.

"I completely blame you for this, Damon." Bonnie says, her voice a lot more breathy than usual. Her dark eyes spark with defiance and anger and confusion. Like she doesn't understand this reaction any more than I do, but is too stunned to simply pull back.

"I know." I say, my own voice deep and slightly husky, the way it automatically comes out when I'm talking to someone I'm very attracted to.

Well this is definitely…. _different_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shout out to-Arya Natchios,Adina_t,JustStockton and Tammy-THANK YOU MY UNICORN BRETHREN!
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading and please comment! xxx


	10. The Moment That Meant Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Attack of the Matt. Also M/M, so if you don't like that then...shoo. ;) x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.
> 
> Special shout out to-BigEasygirl,JustStockton and TheHolesOfMySweater-THANK YOU MY UNICORN BRETHREN!

**Matt's P.O.V**

"I don't know—Caroline I have no idea—of course she didn't—I don't think Bonnie would—alright. Fine. I'll make a few calls-Care, I'm a smalltown Sherriff, we don't have 'connections' to the FBI. No-but-I'm not being difficult on purpose—"

Luke snatches the phone out of my hand and holds it up to his ear,

"Caroline, Matt has to go, there's a family emergency that requires his immediate attention."

I suppress a smile when I hear Caroline begin an all out interrogation. Luke, who out of all of us is the least septic to Caroline's whirlwind personality, cuts her off with a single dry response.

"I'm planning on divorcing Matt if he even thinks about going into the office on his day off to make a few thousand phone calls for the sake of searching for two fully grown adults who are very much capable of taking care of themselves."

Luke, because he is the bravest man I have ever known, hangs up on Caroline mid angry retort. He turns around, opens the washing machine and throws my phone inside on top of a few towels. Luke gives me a look full of warning.

"That phone doesn't exist for the rest of the day, got it?"

I try my best not to smile, because I know that will just piss him off even more. I can't blame him for being annoyed, I've been so busy in work lately. Ever since I took on the position of Sherriff my hours have been even crazier than when I was a deputy. And they were pretty damn crazy before already.

Luke's had to put up with a lot for the past few months, hell for the past year. I'd be scared of Luke leaving me if I didn't know how much he loves me. That wasn't always the case of course. Back when we first got together, well, even the first few years, I struggled to trust that Luke would always be there.

I'd gotten used to people leaving me. Disappointing me. Betraying my trust in them. My mother kicked that trend off, or maybe it was my father. I don't know if I can actually blame a man I never knew for something so fundamentally personal. But either way, when you've been knocked off the wheel as many times as I have, you eventually stop getting on the wheel in the first place.

The truth is, before Luke, I'd lost my faith in people. Worse still, I'd lost faith in myself. I thought about my future and my past as if they were the same thing. When I joined the police department I thought that would be it, the thing that would change my life for the better. But eventually I realised starting over isn't really starting over if you're living in the same town, surrounded by the same people and the same supernatural bullshit.

At least, I thought it was the supernatural stuff that was the problem. I fought against it, and together my friends and I beat the evil that was threatening to destroy us and our town. Again. We lost Bonnie though, and to me, that never felt worth it. I didn't ever say so, because my friends are vampires and it would hurt them to know the truth of what I thought back then.

Part of me thought it would have been better if the supernatural no longer existed. I wished it had never come into my life and the lives of my friends. So many things would be different. Better. Maybe. Which is kind of the point.

Vicki wouldn't be dead, or at the very least she wouldn't have died in the horrible way that she did. My sister could have lived and learned to fight her demons the way our mother never found the strength to. Maybe Vicki would have destroyed herself in some other way. I can't pretend to know how things would have turned out, which was one of the hardest things I ever had to accept as I got older.

Most of my beliefs and prejudices about the supernatural were based on what I thought could have been if it didn't exist. I realised, finally, after all the magic had been stripped away from Mystic Falls, that I'd been using my hatred of the supernatural as an excuse. An excuse to put my life on hold, to stop moving forward, and surround myself with the safety blanket of my past.

It was easy to hate vampires. They are reliably hateable, despite what the YA books my daughter loves seem to suggest. It was easy to drown myself in my hatred of magic and all that it entailed. It was easier to wallow in self-pity and self-recrimination. Both of them swirling around inside me, creating a vortex of indignant resentment.

I managed to pull myself out of that black hole before it could swallow me up completely. Actually, it was more like Luke yanked me out before I could cause any more damage. To myself, or anyone else.

I'd watched other people, other men just like myself, allow their hatred and fear of the supernatural to tear them apart. They shattered themselves into a hundred spiked shards for the sake of something so much bigger than them. Magic.

Magic is not something men like me understand. We aren't _supposed_ to. That's the truth of it. The same way people who have spent their entire lives shrouded by magic will never understand what it means to just _be human_. Having the same chance every ordinary human has. To _live_. To **fight**. And to  die. I know I've lived, and hell, I've fought almost every day of my life for something, or someone else.

It wasn't until Luke that I realised it was time to fight for myself. To _live_ for myself.

My relationship with Luke didn't begin the way any of my other relationships had. We didn't date because it was a given that we would, the way Elena and I did. We didn't become friends, united by the rejection of others, then fall for each other, like with Caroline. We didn't become attached out of pity or mutual loss of knowing what else to do, like how it had been between me and Rebekah. We didn't have strangely similar past experiences to draw on and connect with, the way Nadia and I had.

No. Mine and Luke's relationship began with a fist to the face, a broken glass turtle, and a kiss that tasted of blood and anguish and heat.

The punch was for Bonnie. The glass turtle was an accident. And the kiss…..well, that was one of the more vivid moments of my life, I'll give it that.

"I mean it, Matt." Luke's voice snaps me out of my reverie quite successfully. His wide blue eyes are full of unreleased anger. "You're not even listening to me are you? No of course not, why would you? It's not like we're talking about anything important, just our marriage. It's not like we're discussing **_work_** or anything that actually matters to you—"

I silence Luke's, well earned, trust me, rant with a kiss. Or, what could be a kiss if Luke allows it. Luke could quote easily turn it into a battle of wills between us. A fight for control that never seems to end. One of the fundamental differences I've found to kissing a man, as appose to kissing a woman, is that there is always a fight. At first anyway.

Luke is never one to back down from a challenge though, so we usually find ourselves slamming into walls and accidentally breaking things (turtles, man, the poor turtles) with the force and almost violence of our make out sessions. It was a lot worse before we had the kids, now at least we have a reason to try and stay quiet. Sort of. Although those times in my office at the station after hours definitely make up for any loss of alone time we experience at home.

It was hard explaining to the HR department why I needed a new desk. I'm still not sure they believed me when I told them it broke because I fell on it. Alice, the head of the department, was very interested to know how I'd fallen on something that is too tall to even sit on without being lifted onto it. I wondered aloud how she knew that in the first place. There was a heavy silence over the phone and I felt kind of bad for embarrassing her. But on the plus side, I got a new desk without any more complaint. It's bigger and stronger than the last one. I checked. With help.

One of my deputies, Zane Stone, asked me why I was standing on my new desk. I told him I was testing it. He asked for what. I said it was just to see if I could stand on it securely. Stone asked me why I would need to stand on my desk. I said to change the light bulb hanging in the light above my desk. Stone said I'd be better off testing it in case I ever wanted to have sex with my husband on it like I did last month. I said he was fired. Stone argued that I couldn't fire him because he talked about sex because that would be sexist. I told him that isn't what sexist means, and considered actually firing him, which I would never do because Stone is the only one who brings me good coffee the way I like it in the morning. For that I'd probably forgive him almost anything up to accidentally shooting a civilian. I've seen Stone use his gun, and to be honest there's a good chance that might actually happen at some point.

Before Luke, I didn't understand what Elena meant when she once told me that her love for Damon consumed her; that her desire for him both physically and emotionally had the power to dismantle and discard everything else that _should_ _matter_. I didn't get how that could work, how someone could lose themselves so completely because of another person. I didn't understand how even though your feelings for that person force you to redefine who you are, you still can't let them go.

Luke found his way under my skin without even trying, and trust me when I say that all the movies and books have it right; falling in love with someone _that_ intensely is scary as fuck. It's undeniable and painful even when it's amazing.

I fist Luke's hair in my hand and yank him closer, pushing our bodies as close as they can be whilst we're still wearing clothes, way _too_ _many clothes_ God _damn_ it. Luke twines his arms around my neck and kisses me back with a groan full of promises that I know he won't break.

Our kitchen fades away into the background of reality as I force my tongue into Luke's mouth. We're kissing so hard that our teeth clack together every few seconds, but that bite of pain just makes me want him closer, faster, _now_. It always does.

Luke's blond stubble scrapes harshly against my skin, causing my hand to tighten in his hair. My other hand slides down to squeeze his ass. Our groins press together and I feel the hot outline of his dick against my own. Luke bites my tongue hard enough to draw blood, and then tangled mine together with his. Heat and the taste of copper invades my senses, forcing a growl out of me that I tried my best to hold in check.

Now isn't really the time, the kids will be home from school soon. But I'll be damned if I can even remember my own name, let alone that I have kids, when Luke is kissing me like this. With so much want and desire that it makes my head spin even after all the years we've been together. I expected out fierce passion to fade, which I suppose it has in terms of time and experience, but I still crave him with every breath in my body.

I didn't know it could be like this before Luke. I didn't know it was possible to want someone so profoundly that it made everything else in my life seem worn by comparison. The love is different, because love is always different. But the need and the longing was something I hadn't felt before. I knew how to love someone, or I thought I did, but wanting a person beyond all reason or limit of self-control was completely new to me.

I suddenly, and without warning, understood how Caroline could want Klaus. How Elena could want the Salvatore brothers. How they could love people who have done such terrible things to others, even their _friends_.

Luke had done terrible things to my friends. And I wanted him anyway. I didn't know that at the time, obviously, but that doesn't change anything. Time doesn't wipe away the mistakes of our past. It just gives us a reason to let go of them.

Luke and I pull apart, gasping for air, when we hear the sound of our front door opening. I let my forehead drop against Luke's. Vicki is shouting at someone, most likely her younger brother, Benji. Luke presses his mouth to mine once more, a smile curving his lips.

"Don't think that gets you off the hook, Sherriff." Luke says warningly, but there's amusement in his voice too.

"I know. I deserve the hook." I say, and I do. I've been spending way too much time at work instead of at home with Luke and our kids. The other day, Vicki, in one of her almost-a-teenager moods, pretended not to recognise me. You know you've been screwing up when your twelve year old daughter can openly mock you about it and still maintain the moral high ground.

I kiss Luke's jaw, nipping at the skin just enough to make Luke shiver in my arms.

"I'll make it up to you. And the kids. I promise." I say, and I will. Because I love them more than words could ever express. My family. The kind of family I always wanted when I was younger. Although the being married to a guy part isn't what I originally imagined. But I have the strong marriage, the great kids, the loving home, and the dream job. I couldn't ask for anything else.

Or….at least not for myself. I could ask for a lot more for Bonnie. Caroline isn't the only one worried about our old friend. When I saw Bonnie all I could think about was how relieved I was to see her. It felt like a weight had finally been lifted from somewhere inside me.

Of all our friends, Bonnie was the only one who understood the way I felt about the supernatural shitstorm that had become our lives. Despite being a witch, Bonnie had even more reason to hate magic than I did. I think sometimes she hated herself for what she was, and all the way it had screwed up her life.

Bonnie was my friend, and she sacrificed everything for the people she loved. I understood what it took to do that. I hope she knew that she didn't have to do it. I would have done anything back then to make it so Bonnie wouldn't have to give up everything that mattered to her.

Bonnie and I understood, more than anyone else, the darkness that plagued our lives. I know I should have been a better friend to her. We all should have been. But I can only control and regret my own actions, not those of my friends.

"Oh my God, gross!" Vicki's voice is like a bulldozer smacking into me and Luke. We break apart enough to turn to face our daughter's ire.

"Could you guys, like, _not_ be gropping each other every time I come in here? What if I had friends with me? I'd be the girl whose Dads can't stop making out in the kitchen all the time." Vick has her hands on her hips as she glares at us.

For a moment she looks so much like my older sister that I….actually I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry when I see my sister in my daughter. It's happening more and more as she gets older. I worry that one day she'll be yelling at us for ruining her life, doing drugs, and dating doughbags like Tyler. I mean the man is still my best friend, and I love him, but that doesn't mean I was deaf and blind to the fact that he was a dick when we were younger.

I smile at my daughter and say,

"That's definitely a new insult. When I was a kid we just called each other buttheads and threw things like pencils and French fries at each other."

"Oh, how the times have changed." Luke muses, with a mock wistful expression.

"We're so old." I say, and Vicki mutters something like ' _well, duh'_.

Luke scoffs at me and says,

"Maybe **_you_** are Mr Lets Go To Bed At Nine Even On Weekends."

I brush Luke's hair backwards, making it stick up like a duck's tail, grin at him, and say,

"Better than being Mr Found One Grey Hair And _Literally_ Had A Panic Attack."

Luke hits me hard on the chest. I slap his hand away.

"Hey, stop teaching our children domestic violence."

"Don't use your cop voice on me!" Luke admonishes, but he's trying very hard not to smile by scowling at me. My chest warms at the sight of it. He's so frustratingly beautiful when he's pissed at me.

I remember, back in the early days of our relationship, I would piss Luke off on purpose sometimes just so he'd look at me exactly the way he is now. Like he wants to kiss me _and_ kick my ass. Possibly at the same time.

"Are they being weird again?" Benji comes wandering into the kitchen, his backpack already offloaded upstairs in his room.

Vicki comes into the kitchen when she comes home from school to get a drink or a snack, but Benji always drops his stuff off upstairs before coming back down. It's a funny little difference between my two children.

Benji is usually the more quiet one, although that changes pretty drastically when he's around Daniel, Tyler's son. Somehow we managed to have sons who are the same age, and have been best friends practically since birth. I swear it's not something we did on purpose, but it worked out pretty well just the same.

Vicki is always loud, opinionated, and bold in every way. She becomes even more so around Stefan and Caroline's oldest. Elizabeth and Vicki, along with Enzo's daughter, Zoe, are practically joined at the hip. They spend most of their free time together, as well as in school.

"They're _always_ being weird." Vicki says with a long, dramatic, sigh.

"Yeah, sure, bite the hand that pays for your texting privileges." Luke says, arching an eyebrow at our daughter.

Vicki snorts and gives us her best 'whatever' look.

"Texting's, like, _free_ Dad."

"It _is_?" I say, grabbing hold of Luke's arm in pretend shock, "The mobile phone companies have been…. _lying_ to us?"

"Yeah," Luke says solemnly, "they just send those bills out as a suggestion. You don't actually need to pay it."

I shake my head slowly and say,

"My mind. Officially. Blown."

"You're not funny." Vicki says, but like her Warlock father tends to do, she's clearly trying not to smile by masking it with scathing snark. "I know you think you are. But it's all a lie. Everyone just pretends to laugh at your jokes because they feel bad for you."

Benji is already laughing, his blue eyes shining behind a blond fringe that really needs to be cut sometime soon. I put it on my never ending mental list of things I need to do before I die, or before Luke yells at me for not doing something he asked me do a month ago, like fixing the porch swing. I _really_ need to fix the porch swing. Somehow every time I finish something though, ten more things appear on the list before I'm done.

This whole being a grown up thing is hard. Don't let anyone else tell you differently. I almost wish for the days when I was in High school and my biggest worry was the new evil vampire who'd rocked into town that month.

"You _wound_ me, daughter of mine." I say, tightening a fist over my heart.

Vicki rolls her eyes at me.

"Weirdo."

"Are you doing the locater spell to find Bonnie today, Dad?" Benji asks curiously. He leans against the fridge with an ominous look on his face.

Damn. Luke stiffens next to me, but his expression doesn't falter.

Since Bonnie up and left, probably with Damon, everyone has been losing their shit over it. Luke is of the opinion that we should just leave them to it, and I understand his point. Damon and Bonnie aren't children, and they don't owe us anything at all. If they need some space, then we should give it to them.

But Caroline and Elena don't agree. At all. They want them found as soon as possible and dragged back to Mystic Falls kicking and screaming if needs be.

Honestly, I'm neutral about the whole thing. I wish Bonnie were here, because I've genuinely missed her. I want to help her, to be a good friend like I always should have been. But I also know that Bonnie wouldn't have left with Damon if she didn't want to. Bonnie is stubborn and strong willed, when she makes a decision, she stick to it no matter what. I admire that about her.

Bonnie a fighter, and always has been. She might just be the only person who can keep up with a vampire Damon Salvatore.

However much I want Bonnie here, I don't want to stop her from making her way. Bonnie needs to figure out her own life, the way we all do. And maybe being in Mystic Falls will damage her more than it could help her.

But I did tell Caroline and Stefan that I would ask Luke _if_ he could do the locator spell. He would have to go out beyond the town boundaries to do it. Luke was reluctant, but agreed to it as long as I promised not to go 'gallivanting' off after Bonnie. I promised I wouldn't. Luke told Caroline he would do the spell. Then I mocked him for two hours for using the word 'gallivanting' because _gallivanting_? What the hell?

"Yes, we'll do the spell today." Luke says tiredly.

I slide my hand up to squeeze the back of Luke's neck. He leans into me and I kiss his forehead in a silent thank you.

**Bonnie's P.O.V**

Somehow, I really should have known the night was going to end like this.

By the way, who the hell forgot to tell us that Demons exist?

...

I did not, I _did not_ , want him to kiss me.

So there.

We won't be discussing it again. Ever. No way, no how. I refuse. I will never ever in a million billion years mention the not-at-all almost kiss moment that did not happen because Damon Salvatore would never want to kiss me and I certainly would not ever want to kiss _him_.

So you can all just go to hell. Or worse, a prison world.

I mean it. Nothing happened and nothing will ever happen because…..reasons. I don't need to explain myself to you people. I don't.

"How long have you and Damon been together?" Blaire leans closer to me, nudging my arm with her elbow.

I turn to stare at her, my brain going into shock. Blaire just grins at me like she knows something awesome and isn't going to tell me what it is. I briefly consider bludgeoning her with my beer bottle just so she'll _stop being so nice_ to me.

It's unnatural.

That might be Damon's influence though. He's a suspicious asshole. Damon thinks anyone who offers something without wanting anything in return is clearly a secret psychopath waiting to happen.

_"What would you know about anyone being a secret psychopath?" I said._

_Damon smirked at me and I wanted to stop looking at him. But then he would know I was bothered by his presence and I'd rather die than let him think he'd got to me._

_"I'm a vampire, Bon bon, we're **all** secret psychopaths."_

_I scoffed and said,_

_"There's nothing 'secret' about your psycho-personality. It's out and on display at all times."_

_Damon leaned in closer to me. I fought the urge to move away because, screw him and his mind games._

_"You think I have a personality? That's definitely an improvement."_

_"Yeah, well, I'm drunk."_

_"True. But what does that have to do with it?"_

_"When I'm drunk: I lie."_

_"Mean."_

_"Deal with it psycho-pants."_

_"We're talking about pants now?"_

_"We will never talk about pants."_

_"Too late."_

_"Go away."_

_"I can't."_

_"Oh really?"_

_"No, but I'm sober."_

_"So?"_

_"When I'm sober; I lie."_

The conversation pretty much just degraded from that point onwards.

I realise that Blaire is still grinning at me. Daydreaming about Damon probably isn't the best way to convince anyone that there's nothing going on between me and Damon. Although why I need to convince anyone of that in the first place…..

"Damon and me aren't together. Not like that." I say, trying to sound casual as hell about it, and probably failing.

Erin and Max are behind the bar, serving drinks and laughing. Damon is kicking a couple of guy's asses playing pool over in the opposite corner. Sometimes I swear I can feel his eyes on me, but every time I look over, he's busy concentrating on anything that isn't me.

Maybe I really am being too paranoid.

Damon and I were interrupted from the moment-that-meant-nothing when we heard our names being called by our new friends. Damon stared hard at me for about two seconds before getting us both back onto our feet before I could even blink. He didn't look at me when he said 'better go before they send out the sniffer dogs'. The charged atmosphere fizzled away into the background, although the tension remained.

Even now, I can still feel something hot and inarguably dangerous crackling just below the surface. I keep wondering if it was always there, because in some ways things between us don't feel any different. Now I'm just _aware_ of it.

Pandora's Box has been officially shredded to shit, which means I have no choice, but to try and survive the results. Whatever they might turn out to be.

It's quite possible that nothing will happen. People have weird moments-that-mean-nothing all the time, right? It doesn't have to screw everything up.

I don't even know why I'm thinking about Damon….that way. I never have before. Honestly, I mean it. It has never even occurred to me that Damon and I could want each other that way.

I'm not blind, I know Damon's hot. But loads of guys are hot, and I'm not going around lying on top of any of them in the middle of the street.

Damon's my friend. It took a lot for me to see him that way. We had to be trapped alone together in a freakin' prison world for four months before I could even stop hating him. The actually liking him part was a surprise, I'll admit that.

But I still never considered being attracted to him. Not in way that was more than surface deep. He was the love of my best friend's life. Damon talked about Elena _constantly_ whilst we were locked away in that prison world. Every time I looked at him, I saw Elena. She was the ghost that lived between us, even though technically we were ones who were dead.

Just because things aren't exactly how we pictured them doesn't mean that _everything_ has changed. Damon still loves Elena. I still don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life. I can't pretend to understand what's going on inside Damon's head. I don't even know what's going on inside _my own_ head.

Maybe it was just both of us feeling lost and alone. Damon's all I really have right now, and arguably, I'm all he has too. It makes some kind of weird sense that we would cling to each other in any way we could out of fear and desperation.

"Are you sure?" Blaire frowns, which hurray she has other facial expressions other than smiling, thank God.

"I'm pretty sure I'd know if Damon and I were in a relationship." I say, choking a bit on the words. It just sounds so insane to even think about Damon in terms of a romantic relationship. Sexual, maybe. Like I said, I'm not blind. But anything more than that….well it just wouldn't happen. I'm not the type of girl _Damon Salvatore_ falls for.

And to be honest, Damon isn't the type of guy I'd ever pictured myself falling for either.

I'm getting way ahead of myself here. I barely even _like_ Damon most days. And the feeling is mutual. There's really nothing for either of us to worry about.

Not that Damon is worrying. He probably isn't even thinking about The Moment (and yeah, I'm capitalising that shit). Just because it was weirdly significant to me, doesn't automatically mean it was for Damon.

"I guess." Blaire says, her bottom lip pouting just a little bit. "Although I didn't realise I was in a relationship with Damien until he declared his intentions, like, officially."

"How could you _not know_?" I ask before I can tell myself to shut up.

Blaire shrugs one slim shoulder like it's no big deal.

"Damien has always been kind of protective of me. He isn't really one for caring about people, so it was special for him to care about me so much. Of course, he was in love with Erin for a long time-"

"Woah, woah," I hold my hands up and raise an eyebrow at Blaire in disbelief, "Damien was in love with Erin? Were they ever, like, together?"

Blaire makes a face, which I can't quite interpret.

"It was all kinda….complicated. For a while." Blaire says vaguely. She tries to explain when I continue to stare at her dubiously. "Damien and Soren came into town. Soren and Erin fell in love. But Damien and Erin kind of had a….thing. Erin didn't cheat, it wasn't like that. But she cared about Damien too. Then she kind of fell in love with him as well. But it was different than it was with Soren. Erin went back and forth a couple of times, but in the end….well Damien and I got close when some majorly bad stuff went down, like evil town destroying stuff."

I'm having such a déjà vu thing here.

"So….Damien decided he wanted to be with you instead?" I ask.

Blaire blushes, and her pale skin makes the blush appear even more prominent.

"We…it…well…"

"It was complicated again, huh?" I smile, despite myself.

Blaire smiles back gratefully.

"Yeah. I didn't actually realise he'd…uh… _chosen me_ …until…like I said, he declared his intentions. Properly."

Jesus, I feel I'm in a Jane Austin novel when she says stuff like that.

"What do you mean by 'declared his intentions'?" I ask curiously.

Blaire's smile turns into a grin again. She pulls on a silver chain around her neck that disappears inside her pretty dress. On the end of the silver chain is a ring. A big, ornate, _diamond_ ring.

"Holy shit!" I reach out to touch it, asking for permission with my eyes. Blaire lets me hold the ring, still grinning happily.

"That is one massive motherfraker of a ring, Blaire." I say, because yeah, seriously.

"It's been in his family for a long time." Blaire explains, taking the ring back and hiding it again beneath her dress.

"He asked you to marry him?" I ask, then instantly feel like an idiot. Of course he asked her to marry him, it's not like you give rings like that out just for the hell of it.

"Yes, he did. I was surprised at first." Blaire says, "But after he asked me for the fifth time in a row and told me it was impolite to torture a man so cruelly, I said yes."

I'm surprised he even needed to ask at all. A ring like that would have some women offering up their soul.

"So when's the wedding?" I ask.

Blaire bites her lip,

"It was meant to be a couple of months ago, but the town was attacked again, so we had to put it on hold."

"Attacked by what?" I ask, darting a glance over to Damon who I could almost swear was staring at me just a second ago. I'm gonna catch him doing it if it kills me.

"Oh, just a league of Phantoms from the Dark Dimension."

Ok, well, _that_ gets my attention.

"The Dark Dimension?" I'm almost afraid to ask.

"Yeah." Blaire nods enthusiastically.

"What exactly is that?" I ask, even more reluctantly.

Blaire tilts her head to side, as if trying to decipher if I'm joking or not. She must take note of the confusion on my face that I'm doing absolutely nothing to hide.

"It's a different dimension. For supernaturals." Blaire says, like that makes any kind of sense.

"That's actually a _thing_?" I say, although it comes out sounding a bit shrill.

I'm not ultimately sure why I'm so surprised. But I am. Just when I thought I knew everything important about the supernatural, all of sudden there's a freakin' _Dark Dimension_.

Blaire nods, looking a bit regretful for having told me about it.

"We've been there. It's awful."

Well of course it is. Because anything called The Dark Dimension is going to be horrible and dangerous and….dark, probably.

Damon better not know about this or I'm going to kick his ass for not telling me about it.

I go to ask more, because how can I not now that I know it exists, but I'm quite successfully interrupted when something sharp and painful nudges at the edge of my magic. I choke on a shocked breathe. A nasty spike of power bites, **_bites_** , at my magic.

Blaire gasps along with me, and we both end up on the floor when she falls off her stool and takes me down with her. I only have a moment to process the white-hot pain slicing through me before things start exploding around us.

Blue fire, _blue_?, flares to life, spreading across the celing like a wave of flickering water. I hear Damon call out my name only seconds before I call out his. But I can't see him because the blue fire explodes into action across the car. It consumes the floor as fast as a forest fire, although the flames only lick at my skin.

I expect to feel heat, but instead a static chill races up and down my spine. Only then do I realise that the blue fire isn't actually burning anything. It's turning things to ice. What the actual fuck? I've never even come across a _spell_ that could do that.

I jerk when a small hand grasps hold of my arm.

"Are you alright?" I ask Blaire, or shout at her more like, since the flicker of flames mixed with the screams of its victims is pretty God damn loud.

Blaire's doe eyes are wide with both fear and horror. She looks right at me and exclaims,

" _Kitsune_."

" _Bonnie!"_ I hear Damon's voice through the flames, he sounds frantic and rageful at the same time. I'm pretty sure only Damon can manage that.

" _Damon!"_ I shout back, fear cutting into me at the thought of him getting caught in the fire.

All I can see around me blue fire, it traps me and Blaire in tight circle by what remains of the bar.

" _Redbird_." A male voice calls out from…somewhere. The voice is lightly accented and smooth as silk, despite the current situation.

I try to stand up, but Blaire yanks me back down. She surprisingly strong for such a small person.

"Damien!" Blaire yells, "We're by the bar!"

I just about manage to hold in a scream when a pair of wide, snake-like red eyes appear from within the blue fire in front of us. Blaire doesn't even pause, she takes a deep breathe and extends her hand out towards the red eyes.

" _Xvar kaz_." Blaire intones, her voice deeper and more commanding than I've ever heard it.

A ball of pure light bubbles to life, hovering above Blaire's hand. A rush of magic throws a wave of heat back at us. Blaire throws the ball of light straight at the red eyes. There's an inhuman scream of rage, and the eyes burn away. It also creates a hole in the blue fire.

"You have got to teach me how to do that." I say to Blaire, who smiles knowingly.

The hole is big enough for both Damon, and a man who I assume is Damien, to cross through. As soon as Damon is within touching distance, he grabs hold of me and yanks me up against him. I'm distantly aware of Damien doing something similar with Blaire, but at the moment all I can concentrate on is the relief of Damon being unharmed.

Damon holds me tightly and whispers into my ear,

"I just can't take you anywhere can I my little witch?"

I squeeze Damon even tighter, mostly top stop myself from hitting him, and say,

"I'm gonna go ahead and blame you for this one….what the hell is a Kitsune?"

Damon jerks back enough to look at me properly.

"Kit- _what_?" Damon's blue eyes widen with horror . He turns a glare on Damien and snarls, "What the hell did you **_do_**?"

Well that's not good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N-For anyone who is a fan of, or has at least read, the books, I just want to let you know that although I'll be using certain bits and pieces from the series, such as The Dark Dimension and the Kitsune, they won't be exactly the same as they were in the books. I'm taking creative licence here folks, mostly because I haven't read the books in ages so please just roll with me when I change details! Thanks x  
> Thank you to everyone for reading, please review! xxx


	11. Reality Burns Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Damon's P.O.V**

This is why I don't have friends.

"What did you do to piss off the Kitsune Damien?" I attempt, quite valiantly I might add, to not murder my old friend right here and now. We can get to that later. Right now I need to know exactly just how fucked we all are.

Blue fire burns all around us, the icy flames desperately trying to reach out and consume the idiots they have managed to trap. Damn, I hate that blue fire. Its existence is wrong on so many levels. Fire should not be blue and it definitely shouldn't be fucking cold.

I have Bonnie pressed against my side, her small frame quaking. Probably more with confusion than fear. My witch is a brave one. A weird one, but a brave one.

Damien's liquid black eyes tell me nothing. But I didn't expect them to. He's always been an ice cold bastard, ever since I've known him, and probably most of his life before that as well. You do not go to Damien Santoro expecting warm fuzzies and emotional moments. Not if you really know him anyway.

Or unless you're a pint sized red haired lolly-pop kid reject who looks like she was kidnapped over to our world from the Land of Oz. I never imagined someone like her would be his type. If anything, I'd expect him to go for the suspiciously angelic looking Erin. She reminds me far too much of Caroline.

I can barely believe that after all this time Damien and I are back in the same exact position as we were years before. Trying not to get murdered by Kitsune. And possibly failing if we don't get out of this stupid bar.

"You know, the whole ' _stare at Damon until he goes away'_ thing didn't work back then. And it isn't going to work now, Damien." I growl.

Damien lets out one of those almighty sighs of his. It's the kind of sigh that clearly states to anyone its being aimed at that they are just too bothersome to deal with and can kindly piss off at the earliest opportunity. Only Damien could say so much with just one noise.

That signature sigh used to make me want to kick him in the face. Years later, my position on the subject has not changed at all.

"We should vacate the premises immediately." Damien says, his voice has that same droll edge it always had before. It drives me as crazy now as it did then. Why I never attempted to kill him is still beyond me. Damien continues caustically, because, like me, he can never just leave something alone. "Unless, of course, you would rather stay here and perish, Damon. I expect your tendency towards melodramatic behaviour hasn't improved since we last spoke."

I imagine myself ripping out his heart. That image calms me at least a little bit.

"Keep talking Santoro. I have no problem showing you just how much my 'melodramatic behaviour' hasn't changed. How about a good old fist through the chest or a nice snapped neck?" I smile at darkly, putting as much threat behind my words as I possibly can given the circumstances.

Damien's mouth quirks up on one side ever so slightly. You wouldn't notice it if you didn't know him. That's about as far as he goes smile-wise though.

"Ah, the classics." Damien says, almost fondly. The lunatic. Now I remember why we were friends. And it wasn't because he gave good hugs. That's actually why I'm friends with Alaric.

Bonnie tugs on my arm. I tear my gaze away from Damien reluctantly. I never did like turning my back to the bastard. Bonnie is looking up at me, panic blooming in her deep bambi-like eyes.

"Damon, seriously, can you do the whole male posturing thing later. We really need to go. And I am not dying for the sake of your ego."

"But my ego is so fond of you." I say, smirking, despite everything. Sometimes even I think I'm too much of a dick to be real.

Bonnie rolls her eyes heavenward.

"I only just came back to life a few days ago. If I die again because of you, I swear I will find a way to haunt your ass."

"What, **just** my ass? That's a bit sexually specific Bon Bon. I feel objectified. And so does my ass." I reply, because, in the very depths of my heart, I am not a good or sane person.

"Oh my God, how is this conversation even a thing that's still happening?" Bonnie groans, tipping her head forward, allowing her dark curls to fall into her face.

"If we're making this a vote," The lolly-pop kid says suddenly, or actually, it's more of a semi-dignified squeak, "then I'm with Bonnie on the whole 'lets get out of here' plan."

" _Thank you_." Bonnie says with a sigh of relief. She turns a frown on me, "Now, see, why can't you be like that. Just agree with me all easy-like."

"Oh, I'm easy." I say, grinning at her suggestively.

Bonnie rolls her eyes so hard that I'm afraid she might actually hurt herself.

"Yeah, believe me Damon, I'm aware of that."

"Now, Bon Bon, are you making untoward comments about my purity?" I say, pulling out a fake gasp for the hell of it.

The fact that we haven't died yet is almost impressive. Although it's far more likely that the Kitsune are taunting us by not sending their fire directly over to attack. Kitsune never like to play fair, and they definitely prefer to make their games complicated as fuck for the people being forced to play it with them.

Damien and I found out the hard way what happens when you play around with the Kitsune. There's only side that gets fucked over, and it's never the Kitsune.

"Right then, you heard the ladies, lets move." Damien says, more firmly this time. He takes hold of his lolly-pop kid and then he's gone.

I sweep Bonnie up into my arms without warning, causing her to begin cursing at me immediately. I allow myself a few snickers before taking both of us out of the burning bar.

Cold night air hits my face once we get outside. The sky is jet black, a smattering of stars and a crescent moon giving us the only light besides the blue fire still raging behind us. I take Bonnie and myself further away, heading for the town square. It's likely that Damien will go there too.

Bonnie struggles in my arms when I finally come to a stop. I put her down so that her feet touch the ground, but otherwise I keep her pressed up against me. I'm not at all sure why, but letting Bonnie go isn't something I want to do at the moment.

Bonnie looks up at me, her expression dry and more than a little bit exasperated. She feels warm and soft, her body moulding to the contours of mine easily just like it did before. Bonnie is small, but I would never call her delicate. I've known her too long, seen her do too many insanely dangerous things to ever think of her as some sort of damsel who needs my protection.

My witch can fucking take care of herself. That's one thing I've always admired, and even on some level respected, about Bonnie. Despite her tendency towards self-sacrifice, Bonnie is one of the strongest people I have ever known. The thought of her needing rescuing seems almost ridiculous to me.

Bonnie isn't like Elena or Caroline. If anything, she reminds me of Katherine. Resilient. Determined. Wilful. Except Bonnie isn't a violent, selfish, bitch who only ever looks out for herself. She's the opposite of that in fact, putting everyone else's needs before her own. Protecting the people she loves at any cost. In that, we are alike. But Bonnie also cares about random strangers, which is something I don't think I'll ever be able to fully understand.

Obviously I'm going to have to work hard to make Bonnie a more selfish person in general. If anyone can corrupt saint Bon Bon, then that bastard is me.

Bonnie's body relaxes against mine, most likely because she doesn't have the energy to fight me over something this trivial. But her eyes are still hot and filled with fiery accusation. She's gonna kick my ass in a minute if I'm not real fucking careful. Her face is flushed, and her breathes are coming out in quiet pants, probably due to the adrenaline currently rushing through her system.

I have my arms wrapped firmly around her waist, having no intention of loosening my hold any time soon. The Kitsune, Damien, and the fucking Twilight zone gang can beat it for a while. Bonnie has her own arms twined around my neck, bringing us closer together than we otherwise would be. I can feel Bonnie's warm breathe on my face. This close I can practically taste the natural minty scent of Bonnie's skin.

We locks eyes, and for a moment I have that same weird urge to….do something very, very insane. Even for me. Hell, even for us, it would be strange.

I'm not unaware that something has shifted in mine and Bonnie's relationship. I just can't explain exactly what that shift means, or why the hell it's happening _now_. Why not when we were in the prison world? Why not _years_ ago? Why is it only now that I'm finding myself drawn to Bonnie in a way I've never even considered before?

Nothing has really changed between us. Not noticeably. Bonnie is beautiful, and yeah, sexy (especially when she's pissed off at me), but she's _always_ been beautiful. Being physically attracted to her isn't some kind of big revelation.

But it was never like _this_.

There was never any tangible _desire_ to have Bonnie. I can't remember feeling, at any other point in our ever morphing relationship, that I genuinely _wanted_ her. _Needed_ her. _Craved_ her touch. Felt the impossibly intense desire to take Bonnie, to possess her, fuck her, **consume** her with a passion so great that it could destroy us both in the process.

I've only ever felt this way twice in my life, and those other two times I ended up falling in love with the women who made me feel so _much_.

But, even though this feeling is somewhat familiar to me, it's still different too. Because this is _Bonnie Bennett_. This is Elena's best friend. Elena, a woman who I still can't think about without wanting to burn the entire fucking world to the ground.

I can't want Bonnie. I definitely can't _have_ Bonnie. Even thinking about the possibility of falling in love with her seems too impossible to even contemplate. Bonnie is so far out of my reach that I'd be better off wanting to capture a star.

Besides the fact that my feelings for Elena are still far too complicated to even deal with right now, Bonnie would never consider me as a viable option. She's loyal to Elena for a start. But of course that's just the tip of the iceberg. Bonnie may have allowed us to become friends, but being anything more than that is just not ever going to happen. Maybe in another universe where Bonnie isn't a self-righteous witch, and I'm not a psychopathic vampire, it could work. But not here. Not now. Not ever.

I'm not stupid, or quite self-destructive enough to throw both myself and Bonnie into the fire. Just because she's attracted to me doesn't mean jackshit in the long run. The most we could get out of this is a situation where we're tentative friends who argue all the time and have mind-blowing sex. Because it would be great sex, of that, I've never doubted when it comes to Bonnie.

Why Bonnie ever settled for Elena's kid brother is beyond me.

**Bonnie's P.O.V**

I can practically hear the cogs turning inside Damon's pretty, and psychotic, head. I would give just about anything to know exactly what he's thinking right now. He's looking at me with an expression on his face that I'm unable to read. It looks like a cross between resigned disappointment and incredulous amusement. It's a very manic mixture of emotion, and it makes me feel uneasy. A mixed up and confused Damon Salvatore is never a good omen.

"We should go and find the others." I say finally, after a lengthy pause that was becoming more and more tense by the second.

Damon's grip on me is iron tight, and against all sound logic and reason, I feel oddly reassured by it. I feel safer with Damon than I have any real right to feel. It shouldn't be this way between us, not after everything that's happened.

We've been through too much to fuck up this badly. Because having any sexual, let alone romantic, inclinations towards Damon would be a massive fuck up. It would be a shitstorm waiting to happen.

Where the hell are Damien and Blaire, let alone Erin and Max? Maybe they've made the actual smart decision of leaving town. Yeah, that would be the best option. Damon and I have no ties to this place. We should be way gone by now, except….damn, I can't leave without knowing the others are ok.

And, yes, alright, I'm somewhat curious as to what a fucking Kitsune is. Sue me. I'm starting to think I get myself into these situations rather than having them thrust upon me.

"Are you planning on letting go of me any time soon, asshole?" I ask Damon seriously.

My breathe hitches when Damon runs a warm hand up and down my back, although I think he's trying to be comforting. Little known fact; being fondled by a hot guy is not, and has never been, relaxing to anyone. Ever.

Damon arches his eyebrow at me and says in his most fake-innocent voice,

"No. I'm actually quite comfortable at the moment. Thank you for asking."

I resist the urge to throttle him for two reasons. One, I'm not sure if it's possible to throttle a vampire unless you have the strength of a vampire, although I'm sure there's a spell out there somewhere that would do the trick. And two, because I have other means of 'persuading' him to back off.

A second later Damon is staggering away from me and clutching at his head. I release my hold on the spell and Damon gasps. He glares at me and chokes out,

"You are a mean little witch, Bennett. You're the only person I know who would brutally attack the person who just saved their life."

"Yeah, well," I huff at him, eyes narrowed, "I'm almost positive that it's your fault I was in danger in the first place. So that doesn't count as rescuing. If you cause the danger then you're just fixing your own fuck up."

"Alright, alright, no need to send your horde of black cats after me, I get your point." Damon says, holding up his hands in surrender.

I think about attacking him again, but decide it would be more effort than it's worth. Plus, it's never a good idea to put Damon Salvatore on the offensive.

Damon stands up straight, all traces of agony gone from his face. He looks around the empty town square suspiciously.

"Where the hell is Damien? He left before us, the son of a bitch."

"Feel like telling me what a Kitsune is yet?" I ask tiredly, crossing my arms over my chest and watching Damon speculatively.

Damon gives me one of his trademark mock smiles and says,

"Kitsune are what monsters have nightmares about. Trust me, you don't want to know any more than you already do. I wish I could erase my own memories of those evil shits."

I get myself ready to argue that point, because hell no am I being left out of the loop on this one. But before I can say a word, I'm interrupted.

"Bonnie!" I almost snap my own neck twisting it around at the sound of my name being called.

For a moment I think I'm actually hallucinating. There just no way that can be…..

"Holy shit." Damon exclaims, genuine surprise colouring his tone. "Is that actually Matt fucking Donovan?"

Well if Damon can see him too, then I must not be going crazy. Or maybe we're both crazy. If we're being honest then it's definitely one or the other.

Matt's face splits into a relieved smile. I find myself practically running over to him and throwing my arms around his neck for a hug. Matt doesn't hesitate to hug me back with equal, if not more, enthusiasm. It feels just as good as it did at the boarding house when I first got back.

"What are you doing here?" I ask Matt, pulling away far enough so I can look him in the eye.

I realise then that Matt's face is tense. He looks worried, no actually, he looks downright panicked out of his mind.

"Have you see Luke?" Matt asks me, very real dread lacing his tone.

I shake my head,

"No, Matt, the last time I saw him was at the boarding house. Why, what's wrong?"

Damon comes up behind me then. He places steadying hand on the small of my back. It's almost impossibly comforting. I want to tell him to stop touching me so I actually have a chance of concentrating on anything but the feel of his hand.

My attention is dragged back to Matt though when he says,

"Luke did a locating spell to find you, because Elena and Caroline were going crazy wondering where you'd gone. I promised him I wouldn't go after you, but once I realised you were so close, I thought it couldn't hurt just to check you were alright," Matt eyes Damon warily. Clearly he was more worried that Damon would lead me into trouble. I can't fault him for the assumption all things considered, but I still have the ridiculous urge to defend Damon to Matt and his questioning gaze.

Damon beats me to it though and says sarcastically,

"Oh Donavon, I'm touched that you and your little he-witch wife wanted to stop by to say hello, but, seriously, now is not the best time."

I turn around to hit Damon's chest.

"Stop being a dick for two God damn seconds." I snap at him. Matt is obviously distressed and snarky comment will not help.

"Two seconds. Alright. Should I set a timer?" Damon says, putting up his bastard mask with that stupid smirk on his face. It makes me want to slap him.

"Luke said he'd come with me," Matt goes on, apparently too upset to pay any mind to mine and Damon's bickering. "We got to the edge of this town and suddenly….it was like we were swallowed by a black hole of white light. Then there were shadows and red smoke and blue fire and everything got fucking crazy. The smoke found its way into the car and wrapped itself around Luke. There was another flash of really bright white light and then I was just….in my car. Alone. I was back on a normal road. I got out of the car and started looking for Luke, that was half an hour ago."

I find myself staring at Matt, open mouthed and confused. What the hell is going on in this town?

Damon groans and says to Matt,

"Sorry, Donovan. It seems like your wife's been kidnapped by the Kitsune."

"What the fuck is a Kitsune?" Matt snarls, blue eyes flashing.

"Why would they take Luke?" I ask more urgently.

Damon answers my question but not Matt's, no big surprise there.

"To sell him probably."

" _What_?" Matt and I speak at the same time. Or more like yell.

Damon rolls his eyes at us, but answers,

"That's what Kitsune do. They steal people. Take them to the Dark Dimension. Then sell them."

"How do we get him back?" I demand, anger and fear settling inside my stomach.

"What is the Dark Dimension?" Matt asks, then seems to think better of it. "Actually no, I don't want to know about that. Just tell me how to find my husband so I can take him home and we can pretend this entire day never happened."

Damon's expression darkens, and a sense of foreboding starts clawing at my insides.

"We are not going to the Dark Dimension." Damon says, deadly serious for once.

"Why not?" Matt narrows his eyes dangerously at Damon, and for a single second it feels like we've travelled back in time. "If the Dark whatever is where Luke is, then that's where we're going."

"Listen, Donovan," Damon actually freakin' sighs, like he's explaining something stupid to someone too stupid to know that it's stupid. "The Dark Dimension is not a place for little blond humans to go running around and playing hero."

"And the alternative is to what?" Matt snarls at Damon, "Go home and tell my kids that their Dad was kidnapped by dark magical creatures and I decided not to rescue him because Damon fucking Salvatore said so. Yeah, that's not happening dickhead, try again."

Damon looks like he's ready to say something nasty, so I insinuate myself between the two of them. I place a hand on both their chest, making sure to give them equally stern looks of reproach.

"This isn't helping at all. We can't just leave Luke, Damon. You need to tell me and Matt what's actually going on here. Now."

Damon matches me glare for glare,

"What, so you can go off with Donovan, a.k.a Captain America's less impressive half brother, I don't think so. We just got ourselves out of hell, I'm not throwing any of us back into another version of it."

"Too bad. Just tell me and Matt what we need to know. I'll figure the rest out for myself if I have to. You don't have to come with us." I say, practically spitting out the words Damon.

I'm tired and frustrated and pissed off at Damon. Not that being pissed off with him isn't a constant thing anyway, but still, he's being particularly hate-worthy right now.

"Like hell you'll go anywhere near the Dark Dimension alone." Damon growls fiercely, something alien and intense making his eyes almost appear to glow in the light of the moon.

Damon and I ate interrupted from our stand off by Damien and Blaire. I see both of them come running around the corner over Damon's shoulder. Well, I say run. Blaire is running full pelt. Damien just seems to be striding with just a bit more purpose. I figure that's probably about as close as Damien gets to running if he doesn't have to.

Damon's glare transfers from me to Damien in a heartbeat. I can feel another Santoro-Salvatore smack down fight coming on.

"Where the fuck have you been? Making daisy chains? Having tea with the Kitsune?" Damon takes a threatening step towards Damien. I grab onto him, which is ridiculous because if Damon wanted to break my hold he easily could.

Damien doesn't appear at all ruffled by Damon's obvious aggression. Blaire however, look like she might start bawling her eyes out at any moment.

"What's wrong?" I ask, unable to stop myself from feeling concerned.

Blaire's watering eyes shift away from Damon and over to me.

"Oh, Bonnie, it's Erin and Max. The Kitsune took them."

Oh for the love of-

"Who are these people?" Matt asks, sounding completely bewildered. "And why are we still standing here doing nothing? I need to get to Luke. _Now_!"

"You brought a human into this?" Damien gives Damon a look of surprise and mild disgust.

Damon rolls his eyes and mutters angrily,

"I didn't bring him into anything. I never do. Just like always, Matt Donovan, boy wonder, has managed to accidentally drop himself into a world of shit."

"I swear," Matt says, eyes fixed furiously on Damon. "You go away for seventeen years and I get to experience nothing but peace for all that time. The minute you get back, everything falls apart again. It's the curse of Damon Salvatore."

Damon scoffs at that,

"If you'd just backed off and left me and Bonnie alone then you'd be fine. I think you're the one who keeps blowing back into _my_ life and fucking it up, Donovan."

I take a step away from all of them, trying desperately to clear my head. I feel like I'm falling down the damn rabbit hole. Nothing makes any sense to me. I'm losing my grip on my own sanity over here.

And it's then that realise something we were all apparently too busy sniping at each other to notice.

Holy fuck-

"Damon." I say slowly, carefully.

"What?" Damon snaps impatiently.

I swallow past my disbelief and confusion and ask,

"Is it just me or is the grass glowing?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone for commenting! You are my favourite humans...sshhh, don't tell the others. x


	12. Strangers On A Broken Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Special shout out to-ss18,Regina,Kiodragon-THANK YOU!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Bonnie's P.O.V**

What. The. _Hell_ -

Shimmering green light causes the grass to glow. It swirls and dances like the insides of a lava lamp. I can't peal my eyes away from the sight of something so universally odd. I can barely even comprehend what I'm seeing. The grass shines, copying the moon.

"No— _fuck_ -not this!" Damon's dismayed shout breaks through my reverie and I look back at him.

Damon's eyes are wide and full of a distinct kind of horror. I've never seen him so shaken up by something before. It's clear that he isn't surprised by the glowing grass. In fact I believe he might have been expecting it. Maybe the Kitsune have done this before in front of him. I have no doubt that the glowing grass is tied to the Kitsune. It would be too much of a coincidence otherwise.

"Holy shit!" Matt exclaims. He takes a few half stumbled steps backwards, away from the strangely entrancing grass.

Damon grabs hold of my arm, his grip punishingly tight, which tells me instantly that Damon is one hundred percent truly freaked out. He yanks me towards him, his eyes still fixed on the glowing grass only feet away from us.

"We have to move!" Damien announces coldly, "We need to move _now_!"

Damien already has Blaire in his arms. Blaire appears equally enchanted by the swirling grass as I know I am. There's something about it that calls to me, or more accurately it calls to my magic. Whatever the Kitsune have done, they're using a lot of powerful magic to do it.

Only seconds have passed, but it feels like much longer when a thick tentacled arm bursts free of the glowing grass. The arm flickers and bites at the air. Green fire. I can see myself and my friends reflected in the arm of green fire. Before any of us can react, the arm lunges forward. I know it's aiming for me even before a tentacled finger of green fire wraps around my wrist.

I give a startled yell. The feel of the green fire tentacle burns, but the touch of it isn't technically painful. A buzz od awareness shoots through my body, and instead of trying to yank my arm away, I feel myself wanting to let the tentacle take me.

Damon shouts something I can't hear over the roaring in my ears. He pulls me back, trying to dislodge the tentacle. I think we both know that's hopeless, but he continues nonetheless. I'm vaguely aware of another tentacled breaks out of the glowing grass and wraps itself around my waist.

Five other green fire tentacles follow after that one and attach themselves to Matt, Damien, Blaire, and finally Damon. I don't know why they bothered with Damon. He makes it clear there's no way he's letting go of me. I find Damon's hand lock our fingers together. Damon looks at me then, his eyes meeting mine. I see panic there. Real panic. Fear too.

Whatever this is, it's about to get a lot worse.

We all get pulled closer and closer to the churning pit of magic. I don't know why my instinct isn't to struggle. It's probably something to do with the Kitsune. Maybe they have a certain influence over witches. I just can't seem to think straight. Everything is blurred. Everything except Damon's face. I can see that clearly. I can feel the touch of his hand wrapped around mine. I squeeze it once to reassure myself that he's actually there. A moment later Damon squeezes back.

There's yelling and screaming from all of us as we're dragged down into the green vortex and swallowed whole by pure, unflinching, magic.

As we disappear beneath the whirlpool's surface, I hear Damon call out my name. I try to grip his hand again and answer his call, but before I can complete the action, or even the thought behind it, my mind goes studiously blank.

…..

When light pushes me back into consciousness again, I find myself standing on a road. Just a road. The road is cracked and mostly destroyed, but you could still conceivably walk across it if you wanted to. No car could drive on this road though. There are too many pot holes and thick pieces of asphalt that have been torn apart by….well, whatever it was.

Something painful burns with sudden clarity inside my head, but only for a moment. Even so, I can't stop myself from letting out a hiss. I raise a hand to rub at my temple, hoping to alleviate the pressure left behind by the unpleasant burning sensation at least a little bit.

Above me the sky is cloudy and forbidding. A few feet away is the burnt out shell of a car. Actually, there are quite a few burnt out husks that were once vehicles scattered all over the place on either side of the road. There isn't much else to see except small clusters of trees here and there that have been set on fire and left to burn.

I can't see anything alive. No person. No animal. Not even a lonely shrub.

That fiery pain returns for another few moments. I blink fast, my eyesight goes hazy, making me feel dizzy and like I might be sick. Only when my eyesight returns to normal do I realise that I am not alone on this broken road.

I'm not sure how I missed him before because he is directly in my line of sight now. A man is led in the middle of the road. I take a step towards him, worried that the man might be hurt. He's not dead. I can see his chest rising up and down steadily. I think. Or it might be a trick of the light. The sun is hidden by the dense, almost black, clouds.

I tell myself not to be stupid and walk over to the man. My legs are surprisingly steady. I kneel down next to the man and reach out to touch his chest. I almost choke on oxygen when the man's eyes suddenly flick open.

My first, wildly inappropriate, thought is that the man has very pretty eyes. They're blue. Pale, powder blue. A girl could get lost in eyes like that. But this is hardly the right circumstances for those kinds of thoughts.

I pull my hand away from his chest when he looks at me. The last thing this man needs is to wake up and find a stranger randomly touching him. He doesn't look freaked out though. Instead he frowns at me, confusion clear on his face.

"Um, hello." I say lamely. But really, what am I supposed to say in this situation? Nice to meet you? Having a nice time laying on the ground are you? Where the hell are we?

Actually, no, that last one sounds good.

"Uh, hi." The man says back with equal lameness. Well, at least we're on the same page about something already.

"Are you alright?" I ask him, wary of the fact that we are in an exposed area in the middle of what looks like a warzone.

"I….think so, yeah." The man says, sounding just as wary, but maybe for different reasons. He cracks an oddly flirtatious small smile though and adds, "I've woken up to worst sights than this in my life, sweetheart."

I'm assuming he means me and not the vaguely disturbing wasteland that surrounds us.

"Well, if you're well enough to be dishing out bad lines, then you're well enough to get up." I say dryly. My knees are starting to hurt and I get the feeling that we really shouldn't hang around here for too long.

I hold out a hand to help the stranger to his feet. He takes my hand after a hesitant moment, although he ends up helping me up more than the other way around. When we're both safely standing, I quickly realise that there isn't much space between us. My chest brushes against his and a strange fluttering sensation creeps around inside my stomach in response.

The man appears to notice our closeness too, but instead of moving away, he just smirks teasingly at my discomfort.

I roll my eyes at him. It feels oddly natural to do so, as if I've somehow become used to his behaviour even though we don't know each other at all. The thought disturbs me, and I take a big step back from him. The man acknowledges my need for space with a nod, but the smirk remains, which is, for whatever reason, even more annoying.

"Who are you?" I ask belligerently, too irritated and weirded out to be anything close to polite.

My question actually seems to give the man pause. He tilts his head to one side, eyes drifting away thoughtfully. After what feels like ages, the man finally answers,

"I don't know."

He sounds so genuinely perplexed that for a second all I can do is stare at him in disbelief. Then the anger kicks in.

"What do you mean, you 'don't know'? How can you not know? You must at least know your own _name_."

The man arches an eyebrow in response to my pissy look, but doesn't seem bothered by it. He replies honestly,

"Nope. Don't know. Sorry. Who are you then? Do _you_ know?"

_Who am I then?_

I glare at him furiously and snap,

"Of course I know who ** _I_** am! I'm….I'm….my name is…um….hold on a sec…let me think….I'm….ah….uh…." A curl of dread makes a home inside me. I look up to meet the man eyes and finish on a whisper, " _I don't know_."

How is that possible? I can't just _not know_ who I am. Can I?

The man must see something, apprehensible fear most likely, on my face, because he places a hand on my shoulder and says gently,

"Don't panic. Stop thinking about the things you don't know. Let's try and figure out what we _do_ know."

I can't decide if that helps or not. Part of me wants to slap the man's hand away from my shoulder, but at the same time his touch is oddly comforting. Those two conflicting feelings mash together and create a tornado of self-doubt. In the end I compromise by pushing the man's hand away, but staying close to his side.

Without me needing to say anything, the man seems to understand the boundary I've created between us. He jerks his head, indicating that we should start walking. Unsure of what else to do, I follow his lead.

We walk together, side by side, along the broken road in what could be companionable silence. Ish. On my end its more shock mixed with dread. But I don't think either of us wants to start talking yet. We're both afraid to, just in case we find out that the other knows nothing about where we are or why we're here, along with the fact that we don't even know our own God damn names, let alone the rest of it.

The man gives up the ghost first.

"For what it's worth, I know I'm a vampire."

"I'm a witch!" I practically shout, just glad to realise that I do know _something_ about myself.

The man raises an eyebrow at me in obvious amusement, but I don't care. It was scary as all hell to think that I knew nothing about who I was. Now at least I'm certain of one thing. I'm a witch. I can do magic. I suppose that'll mostly have to do for now.

"Alright, don't have a heart attack over it." The man says, eyeing me thoughtfully. "Being a witch isn't that great. It's just my luck to get stuck out here with a judgy little Hogwarts reject."

I resist the urge to….to….I don't know, pick up a rock and throw it at his face. His stupidly attractive face. It wouldn't look so pretty after getting smashed in with a rock now would it? Yeah, I'm definitely warming to this whole 'throw-a-rock-in-his-face' idea.

"What do you mean, just your luck?" I say. "You don't even know how unlucky or lucky you've been before because you don't _remember_ anything about your life."

The man pulls a mock horrified expression at me.

"Oh God, she's a _literal_ judgy witch. This just got worse, and I didn't even know it _could_ get worse. Congratulations for proving me wrong on that score, witchy."

I'm starting to think maybe this actually ** _is_** hell and my eternal penance will be walking down a destroyed road with the most annoying person in the universe as a travelling companion for the rest of forever. Even the thought is depressingly awful.

"You know what?" I say, poking a finger at him. "I've changed my mind. Go back that way and lie down on the ground again."

"I can't." The man says, sounding more amused than anything in the face of my impending wraith. "I lost my space and you broke my concentration."

I don't know what that means and I honestly do not want to know either.

"You're an idiot." I declare with a sense of finality that I feel right down to my bones.

The man peers at me more closely,

"You know, you seem to be a very angry sort of person."

Without thinking too much about it I reach over and thump him on the arm.

"Violent too." The man adds, shaking his head despairingly.

"I dislike you. I dislike you _a lot_." I say with a tired sigh tacked on to the end. "I think we should just walk in silence for a while." Or just never talk to each other again, ever.

The man lifts a hand, and still looking like he might laugh at any moment, he zips his mouth closed with two fingers.

That's it. I hate him.

…..

We walk for what must be hours, but neither of us have a clock to keep track of the time properly. Neither of us have seen anything but broken road and burnt out cars. I'm beginning to feel the edges of hopeless take over.

The man and I have spoken a couple more times, trying to work out what either of us might know. But so far all we've come up with is that I'm looking for a friend, although I can't remember what my friend looks like or anything about them. The man is searching for a girl, but again, he can't remember a single thing about her, which isn't helpful to either of us.

I'm so tired, stressed out and, ultimately, bored, that when the man grabs hold of my arm and tells me he can hear a car coming, I just about fall to my knees and thank the universe for finally giving us a break.

I hear the first rumbles of a vehicle engine, and a slice of fear courses through me. We don't know who's driving that vehicle. What if they're hostile? What if they kill us? Wherever we are right now, nothing about it suggests calm conversations and warm feels. If anything I'd say us getting killed would be more likely than anything else.

The man still has a grip on my arm. He looks down at me, blue eyes mirroring the same suspicions that I knew he must see in mine. He says,

"Stay calm. If anything goes wrong, then I'll deal with it. When I say run, you _run_."

I want to snap something back about not needing some random guy to protect me, but at this point I think I'm entitled to at least a little backup.

In the distance I catch sight of a large pick-up truck driving towards us. I'm not sure how they're managing to do it on this particular road. I imagine their wheels will be ready to give out soon if they keep going.

The truck is pale green, although the colour has obviously faded over time. Maybe it was once a bright leaf green. A long and possibly difficult life drained the colour from it. This world, wherever it is, seems to have sapped the colour out of everything. We might as well be walking around inside a black and white movie.

Neither the man nor I feel the need to wave our arms to get the truck's attention. It would be spectacularly hard to miss us seeing as we're the only people around for probably miles. We do stand together though, as if only a few hours in each other's presence was enough to have cemented an alliance of sorts. I'm glad to have an ally, even if he is a dick. But he's also a vampire. Vampires are dangerous and having one on my side right now feels like a good thing.

I'm not sure how I know anything about vampires considering I have no actual memories of them. I'll just have to put that in the 'stuff-that-makes-no-sense-but-oh-well' basket for now. That basket is already way too full already.

Once the truck is close enough, it comes to a sudden stop. From the driver's side I can see into the front of the truck. A man sits behind the wheel. He's youngish, maybe thirty, with light blond hair and shrewd but kind eyes. He's got on a dirty plaid shirt and a cowboy hat. He looks me and my 'companion' up and down a few times before saying,

"Have either of you been bitten?"

Of all the things I expected him to ask, that question doesn't even make into the top one hundred. What does he even mean? 'Bitten'? Bitten by _what_?

"No, we haven't." The man who still has a grip on my arm says.

I tell myself not to shoot a questioning look at him. It wouldn't look good to the man in the truck if I show signs of disagreeing with my new 'friend'.

The man in the truck eyes us speculatively for a few more seconds, then says,

"You on your way somewhere?"

"No. I guess we kinda got lost." I say, trying to smile, but it falls flat. 'Kinda got lost' doesn't even begin to cover it.

"We're going wherever you're going." My new pet stranger says to the man in the truck.

The man in the truck raises an eyebrow at that, but it seems to make up his mind about something. He offers us a half smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Well, you're in luck kids, there's a place for ya where I'm going. My name's Zach. Climb into the back, we've gotta get home before nightfall." Zach says, and there's a certain wariness in his voice that twists something inside me.

I look up at the sky. Sunlight is peaking through the clouds now, cracks of light breaking up the darkness just enough to let us know it's still daytime. It freaks me out a little that Zach is worried about us being out here at night. We haven't seen anything living for miles, and yet, I still get the prickly sensation that we're in danger somehow.

My pet idiot mock salutes Zach with two fingers and says,

"Thank you _sir_ ," But the 'sir' sounds so sarcastic that no one could mistake it for actual respect. "I've always wanted to go to Brokeback Mountain."

Zach's eyes widen, but he doesn't appear all that shocked. Just exasperated.

"Ah, you're one of them who thinks he's funny." Zach says with a snort.

My pet idiot just smirks and replies,

"No, I'm one of them who isn't stupid and knows what it means when another man is checking him out instead of the hot girl standing next to him."

Zach surprises me by barking out a genuine laugh. He looks at me and says,

"You real attached to this guy or could I just shoot 'im with my gun?"

I take a moment to seriously consider that question. I make a big show of scratching at my chin and pretending to stroke a thoughtful old man beard.

"Your silence right now is hurting my feelings." My pet idiot says, a hand pressed over his heart and a look of ridiculously exaggerated pain on his face.

"Your _face_ is hurting my _eyes_." I retort without missing a beat. My pet idiot just laughs in response.

"May face is a wonder to behold, and you know it." He says.

"If by 'a wonder' you mean it's 'a wonder' that your face isn't messed up by how many people must punch you on a daily basis." I retort.

"Anger is an extremely attractive look on you." He replies non-plussed, and he actually sounds like he means it, the bastard.

I look at Zach and ask,

"Can _I_ shoot him with your gun?"

Zach laughs, his eyes darting between us like he's watching a tennis match take place.

To be absolutely fair, I did notice Zach taking extra time to look my pet idiot over. I just thought he was examining him as a threat, not a potential sexual conquest. Shows you how good I am at reading people apparently.

"On second thoughts, we better keep him alive for now." I say to Zach.

Zach looks vaguely disappointed, but he bounces back quickly and asks,

"You two got names?"

For a moment I have a mini panic attack. Of course we must have names. We just have no idea what they are. And that sounds very sane, doesn't it?

My pet idiot and I exchange glances.

I poke my pet idiot's arm and say,

"Uh…this is um…he…his name is…uh…I…. _Ian."_

Yes. Right. I've named my pet idiot.

Ian. There we go then.

 _'Ian'_ gives me a look that could set a lesser person on fire. He pokes me back and says,

"Yeah, right. And this is my _wife_ ….Kat. We're the Graysomer's."

That son of a-

"Ah, yeah, that makes sense." Zach says, smiling like he's just completed a particularly difficult puzzle.

"What makes sense?" I ask him.

"That you two are together." Zach says. "The bickering kind of gives you away."

I want to hurt someone. Preferably 'Ian'.

"Yes," Ian says, a barely concealed smirk on his face. He wraps an arm around my shoulders. I consider the advantages and disadvantages of biting him. "We are very much in love. Our love story is, without question, _epic_."

I try to send the message 'IHATEYOU' telepathically.

"Really?" Zach smiles at us, "You'll have to tell me sometime. Now go on, climb in, I'm just coming back from a water run. Usually a group of us go out, but there was an attack last night in camp."

An attack? A water run? Camp? What?

I'm about to ask what he means by all of that, but Ian doesn't let me. He leads me round the back of the truck and climbs up into the back. He offers a hand to help me. I glare at it and climb in by myself. Petty and childish I know, but right now I don't much care about that.

Ian sits down and I follow suit, sitting next to him. A moment later the truck starts moving.

I look at Ian, but he's too busy scanning the surrounding area. Ian looks relaxed, but I can tell its bullshit. He's just as weirded out as I am about all of this. I get the feeling he's pretending that everything is ok for me as much as he's doing it for himself.

The sound of the moving truck is loud enough that I feel comfortable enough to ask,

"Do you know what he meant when he asked if we'd been bitten?"

Ian's expression becomes hard, but his response isn't steeped in anger.

"No. But we don't need to be drawing any unnecessary attention to ourselves until we know what the situation is."

I suppose that makes sense.

"How are we supposed to find out what's going on if we don't ask though?"

Ian runs a hand through his messy dark hair and sighs.

"We'll just have to pay attention."

Pay attention? That's his great plan?

As if he's just read my mind, Ian glares at me and says,

"Unless you have a better idea, little miss twitchy witch?"

Unfortunately no, I don't.

"Alright, don't get huffy with me fang boy." I say, narrowing my eyes warningly at Ian.

"You are so _mean_ , Sabrina." Ian says. He nudges my shoulder and adds, "I like that in a fake wife."

"Yeah, and that's another thing, why the hell did you tell him we're married?" Or together at all for that matter.

"Because it sounds less suspicious if we're just a normal young married couple who got lost instead of being two random strangers who have no idea who or where they are." Ian explains like I'm a bit soft in the head.

"Yeah, well, you're still a dick, regardless." I say. My debating skills need some serious work. I wonder if the other me, the me who knew everything about herself, was any better at arguing with annoying assholes. I certainly hope so.

Ian rolls his eyes, but he's got that endlessly frustrating smirk on his face again.

Ian says, gesturing between us,

"I think this might be the start of a beautiful friendship, _Kat_."

I wonder if it's possible to make someone explode just by glaring at them.

I shake my head at him and say,

"I may not have any memories, but I'm still absolutely sure that was the most horrific thing anyone has ever said to me. Take it back. We will never be friends. _Never I say!_ "

Then something far worse, bordering on traumatising, happens. Ian starts to sing.

" _I'll be there for you; when the rain starts to pour. I'll be there for you; like I've been there before. I'll be there for you; cause you're there for me tooooo_."

I hate that I recognise it as the theme song for 'Friends'.

I hate even more that it makes me laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N-I know things went very AU this chapter. Feel free to make guesses about what going on, and if you have any questions please ask and I'll make sure to answer them. My story is taking it's training wheels off now and it's ready to ride like the wind! x  
> THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR READING! x


	13. Another Day, Another Dimension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Vampire Diaries in any way, shape, or form. Like, not even a little bit, I promise.

**Damon's P.O.V**

Zach drives for about half an hour before we reach our destination. We pass an almost decimated sign at one point, which is the only indication of where we are. The sign is charred and looks like it was gnawed on by a particularly pissed off bear. I can only really make out the word 'Falls'. Something 'Falls'. That doesn't tell me much of anything.

I keep expecting an itch of recognition, even the ghost of a memory. Hell, I'd accept a weird 'knowing' feeling at this point. But no. There's nothing. My entire life is a black hole of nothingness, and I'll be honest, it's genuinely terrifying. Actually, the only thing that feels oddly familiar to me is 'Kat'. I don't know what it is about her that has me feeling at once protective and strangely at ease in her presence, but I'm thankful for it.

Kat keeps pretending not to look at me out of the corner of her eye. I've decided to humour her for now. Teasing is one thing, but I don't want this woman to actually hate me. We're going to need to trust each other at least for now. It can't be a coincidence that we've both lost our memories. For all we know, Kat and I might know each other. The real versions of ourselves I mean. Either way, I don't plan to let Kat out of my sight until I understand the full extent of our situation.

Zach drives over a bridge, which appears untouched. Considering how destroyed everything else I've seen looks, that's quite surprising. And just a bit suspicious. Maybe magic is protecting it. Zach is definitely human, the unmistakable feel of humanity practically leaks out of his every pore. But that doesn't mean his friends are human.

We eventually reach a wall. The wall is obviously man made out of wooden boards and disjointed stone and, from the looks of things, just about anything that would have been available to use as wall building material. It has a drawbridge built into it as well. As in a genuine God damn drawbridge. Because why the fuck not?

What immediately attracts my attention however isn't the wall itself, but the people standing on top of it who are wearing what looks like badly made body armour, and are holding guns. Not just guns either, but proper rifles. Guns would be one thing, this is America after all, or at least I think we're in America, but big, black, SWAT team level rifles suggest that bad shit has gone down here. And the fact that there's a wall blocking the entrance to their town would also suggest that more bad shit could happen at any moment.

Kat is staring at the wall, mouth slightly agape. I get why. The sight set before us isn't exactly welcoming. Plus it confirms my fears that wherever we are, we definitely aren't safe. These people are trying to protect themselves against something. Humans don't usually build walls and carry big ass guns around because they feel relaxed and safe. I may not have any memories, but I know that much.

The people standing on top of the wall are staring down at us warily, hands twitching around their guns already. God damn it, humans are a group of jumpy motherfuckers when they feel threatened. I do not need to be shot at today.

I raise my hand and wave at them pleasantly. Kat turns a scowl on me and hisses,

"What are you _doing_?"

I nudge her arm and turn my ultra-fake smile on her. I mutter through clenched teeth,

"Smile and wave, Witchy woo, just smile and wave."

Kat looks at me sceptically, but she raises her hand all the same and waves, forcing her own fake smile. She even looks half way normal doing it. I'm almost impressed.

Both of us need to look as inconspicuous and non-dangerous as possible. Otherwise these gun toting survivalist wannabe's might decide to shoot us just for the sake of it. The expression 'better safe than sorry' should be humanity's catchphrase when disaster strikes.

Zach leans out of his side window and calls over to his companions from the wall,

"Found some new people. They're clean, I already checked 'em."

The wall buddies all exchange glances, but one of them nods at Zach after a strong silence. She looks about thirty and has long curly red hair. Her eyes are cold and piercing even from all the way over here. Clearly, she is boss of the wall. I'll have to remember that one for later.

Red calls back to Zach,

"Take them to medical first. I want Meredith to look them over. Just in case." I don't like the sound of that 'just in case' bit, but there's not much I can do about it. Kat and I can't refuse anything without calling undue attention to ourselves.

"Got it, Ana." Zach salutes Red, and even though I can't see his face, I'm almost certain that Zach is smiling.

Red makes a gesture with her left hand and another wall lover moves to, I'm assuming, lower the drawbridge. A _drawbridge_ though? _Really_?

Once the drawbridge is lowered, Zach drives straight on through without another word.

After that it only takes a few minutes to reach the actual town. I try my best to take in as many details about the town as possible, but honestly, there isn't much to see. Before whatever happened, _happened_ , this place was probably just another normal small town. But now it looks like it was bombed. All the houses appear either caved in and burnt to the ground, or half-heartedly rebuilt after having been almost destroyed.

The road is cracked, but not ruined, and there a few scattered bodies. Or maybe they're just parts of bodies. Whoever lives here has obviously tried to clean up as best they can, but there are still signs left behind of the chaos that once infected this town. The air smells of death and decay, and I don't think all of that can be blamed on the actual dead people.

Zach stops when we arrive at what was probably the town centre before. There's still a half erected gazebo in the middle of the town square, but all the grassland around it appears to have been rucked up and burnt to a crisp.

There are people walking around, and practically every single one of them are wearing that makeshift body armour and carrying some kind of weapon. All of the people look either weary or on edge. On some faces there is a mixture of both. They've lived through something horrible, and worst of all, they're _still_ living through it. Whatever's going on here, it's big. Big and bad and potentially life ruining.

I'm quite surprised that Kat hasn't made any comments yet. I would expect her to gasp in shock and maybe cry a little over how fucked we clearly are. Or possibly even how fucked all _these_ people clearly are.

But no, she's sitting beside me. Watchful and ready, but not dismayed. Or at least not enough to kick up a fuss. Either I've found myself a partner in sociopathic crime, or Kat's somehow used to this kind of horror and destruction. Considering we have no memories, us being 'used to' anything is kind of impossible. But I trust myself well enough to realise that none of this particularly disturbs me either. Kat and I could both just be terrible people I suppose, but somehow I don't buy that. From what little I've been able to ascertain about Kat, she doesn't seem the type to be uncaring or dismissive of other people's grief.

"One wrong move and they'll kill us." Kat whispers to me with a certain level of conviction.

I lean in a bit closer to her so that I can reply quietly,

"Play it cool, Special Agent Sabrina. We're just two ordinary people who got lost. Try to look normalish."

"We're deep undercover then." Kat says, the ghost of a smile on her pretty face.

"Too right we are." I say, flashing a small grin. "Better make sure we keep to our story, otherwise HQ will kick our asses back to desk duty."

"You're ridiculous. _Ian_." Kat admonishes, but she can't keep the frown fixed on her face for long.

"And you love it. _Kat_." I reply easily, nudging her side again.

Kat rolls her eyes and turns away from me with a huff. I stop myself from poking at her some more just in time to see Zach walk around the side of his truck. He opens up the back of the truck and eyes us with that same half-suspicious stare.

Zach nods at us once and says,

"Come on, I'll show you to Meredith. Mer is our only Doctor and she doesn't put up with any smart-mouthed crap, so behave." Zach aims that last comment at me. I smile at him gamely. Zach doesn't seem impressed. This guy is definitely the all American good ol' boy type. If Kat and I end up staying here for a while, I promise myself that I'll dedicate some time to purposefully messing with Zach and his most likely carefully ordered world view. I'll need _something_ fun to look forward to around here.

I jump down from the truck and help Kat do the same. I notice that we're both being gawked at by quite a few passing town members. Some of them just look surprised and curious, but there a few others, the ones with the more dangerous weapons, who appear a bit volatile towards our continued existence. I make sure to stay close to Kat.

I don't want one of these knuckle-dragging block heads to suddenly go all Rambo on us, so I resist the urge to kill someone out of sheer frustration. Barely.

"Is this place your, um, camp?" Kat asks Zach as he leads us away from the town square. She does a good job of not making that sound like a weird or stupid question.

Zach shifts the gun he's currently carrying to rest against his bicep and turns a speculative look on Kat.

"Yes. I'm not from here originally. I don't think anyone left is. Most of us just accidentally stumbled across this town, the same as you two did. All the original townsfolk were killed during the first virus wave."

The first _what_ now?

I school my features, trying not to seem like I'm surprised by this information. Or that I'm confused as fuck by it.

Kat seems to be struggling with the same confusion. She opens her mouth to ask another question, but then apparently thinks better of it. She looks at me, her brow furrowed. I give her an imperceptible shrug in response. I have no more idea of what's going on than she does. Although I'm beginning to feel a lot like I've just woken up inside an apocalyptic nightmare.

Since there's not much either myself or Kat can say without giving ourselves away, we both keep quiet. Zach is apparently happy to accept the silence as we walk through town. There are scattered groups of people all around, most of them rebuilding houses or abandoned shops for later use. I see a group gathered around a makeshift shooting range, some being taught by others. Out on one large patch of grass that was probably once a park, people are quite clearly being trained to fight. Everyone seems busy, and they all apparently have jobs to do.

The vibe isn't exactly that of happy dwarfs singing ' _hi ho, hi ho'_ , but there's definitely an air of contentment spread throughout the town. I wonder what these people had to experience to get to this place, where none of them seem that concerned about living in a more than half demolished little town with a world outside it that seems more dead than alive.

Zach takes us to a mansion on the outskirts of town. Surprisingly, the mansion itself appears relatively untouched by whatever disaster hit the rest of the town. Something about the place makes my fingers twitch. For a moment I think a memory will come out of hiding. But nothing happens. The unknown darkness inside my mind is still there, unmoved by my momentary recognition. If that's even what it was.

Either way, I'm officially intrigued.

"This is the old boarding house." Zach tells us matter-of-factly. "We use it as a medical centre now. Patients and anyone with medical experience sleep here."

Good to know. This place is definitely their weak spot. Not that it really matters, but knowledge is power, and to a man who doesn't even know his own name, I'll take what I can get.

I realise belatedly that Kat is scowling at the old mansion, her cat-like eyes bright with possibility. She looks how I felt when I first saw it. I can't help but think maybe she recognises it too. Or at least recognises something about it. That convinces me even more that Kat and I are connected somehow. If nothing else, that's a reason to stick together for now. Until we know more. Or die. I'm sensing that as a very real possibility.

The front door is open and Zach leads us inside without any trouble. I smell sick people before I see them. There are beds and cots set up in what would have been one of the grand living rooms. People are bustling around carrying bandages, some of them bloody, and other various pieces of equipment. A few people are sitting beside cots with injured people led in them.

A young woman, blond, blue eyed, and bouncy, comes running over to Zach and throws her arms around him in a fierce hug. Zach laughs and hugs the woman in return for a few moments before they both pull back.

"We were all worried Zach." The blond woman says in a slightly whiney voice. My irritation and instinctual dislike is instant and unexplainable. The woman continues, "You know how much Nina and I hate it when you go out there alone."

"It's still daylight, Candice." Zach argues humorously. "The worst thing I'll be attacked by is a demented squirrel."

"It's _barely_ daylight." Candice huffs, giving Zach a 'you know I'm right' look. "And besides, we agreed, no more solo runs. At least take Paul or Michael with you next time."

"Christ you sound just like Davis." Zach groans softly. "I'm sorry I was late, I picked up some new people." Zach gestures at us, as if it weren't already obvious that we don't belong here.

Candice blinks at us, like we've just poofed into existence right before her eyes. Her surprised expression turns into one of friendliness however and she says brightly,

"Oh, hiya! Wow, we haven't had _new_ people in, like, _forever_. We didn't think there was anyone left to find out there."

No new people for a long time then? That would explain all the staring Kat and I experienced whilst walking through town.

"And you both look so clean." Candice adds, sounding more shocked about that than anything else.

I can't stop myself from saying,

"Yes, we can bathe, brush our teeth, and use the grown up potty all by ourselves. Thank you for noticing."

Kat elbows me. Hard.

"Ignore him." Kat says to Candice. Candice is now giving me evils, which I take as a personal victory. Kat pats my arm patronisingly, with a sweet indulgent smile to match. She explains ruefully, "Ian's just grumpy because he hasn't _eaten_ yet today. When Ian's hungry he can get kinda growly and asshole-ish. The rest of the time he's just dickish with a side of snarky."

I think about eating Candice just to annoy Kat, but I think the little witch might actually kick my ass with witchy voodoo. I don't have my memories, but I am smart enough to be wary of a witch, so I figure I must have had some dealings with them in the past. And not pleasant ones either.

"This is Kat and Ian Graysomer." Zach tells Candice, apparently trying to smooth things over. He doesn't seem that bothered about me though. I will aim to change that. Zach goes on, "Found 'em wandering down the main road."

"Alone?" Candice asks, her expression becoming instantly more guarded.

"Alone." Zach confirms gruffly. "Ana wants Mer to take a look at them."

Candice bobs her head in silent understanding before turning a fully watted smile on me and Kat. I resist the urge to hide behind Kat for protection from that prom queen chomping show of teeth. It's like a freakin' lion baring fangs to its prey before pouncing. Ha, fangs!

"Come on, I'll take you to her. She's in the main room." Candice says, gesturing for us to follow her before spinning on her heel with a flick of Barbie blond hair over her shoulder.

"I'm gonna head over to Alpha station and unload the supplies." Zach calls out to Candice, already backing away towards the mansion's entrance. He tips his cowboy hat in our direction and gives us, but especially me, a warning look. He says to us, "You two play nice now. Try not to get into any trouble."

I salute him with two fingers and reply,

"Boy scouts honour, Woody."

Zach sighs heavily, but he leaves anyway.

Kat pulls on my arm to get me moving. We both follow Candice through the old boarding house. Kat glares up at me and whispers hotly,

"Behave yourself or we'll both be screwed."

I smirk down at Kat,

"By who? Not Zach, right? I've already told him I don't swing that way. Don't make a liar out of me. You are my wife, remember."

"And you're an _idiot_." Kat counters, "I'll definitely remember _that_. Especially since you keep reminding me with every other thing that comes out of your mouth."

"Well," I say, undaunted by Kat's apparent anger, "if we're going to start a conversation about things coming in and out of our mouths then-"

Kat slaps my arm again and then buries her face against it to hide a smile.

"Don't make me laugh, asshole." Kat orders, her words muffled.

I like Kat's laugh. I like making her laugh too. I think if I had a friend before I lost my memories, I would have wanted her to laugh like Kat, which feels like a strange thought to have, but there it is anyway.

Candice takes us through to a much larger room. It's decorated ornately, but the contrast between that and what the room is now being used for is almost laughably obscene. The patients in this part of the mansion appear to be the most ill and/or injured.

"Meredith, we got some new guys!" Candice calls out.

A dark haired woman looks up from dealing with a man who appears to have lost an arm. She whispers one last thing to the man before taking a step back and walking over to us with a grim look on her face. She looks harried and impatient, which is what I associate with all Doctors I think. Even without memories, some things you just _feel_ , right down deep in your bones.

Meredith weaves around cots occupied by people who look one final breathe away from death. Seeing so much pain and devastation clearly has an effect on Kat. She's facing it all head on, no trace of fear or repulsion, but I can tell she's also gritting her teeth hard enough that it must be hurting by now. I wonder if that's who Kat is, or was. The kind of person who could look death and mystery in the eye and still retain her capacity for strength and compassion. If that's true, and if we knew each other in our lives before this, then I hope I was worthy of her acknowledgement and trust.


End file.
